Infection
by Starway Man
Summary: An experimental virus is stolen from the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. What do you think happens after it ends up in Sunnydale? COMPLETE
1. Clear And Present Danger

**Date written: **Sun 22 Aug 2010

**Author:** Starway Man

**E-mail:** theop at hotkey dot net dot au

**Rating:** R overall, with mostly PG parts.

**Spoilers:** None these days, but the story pretty much covers events up to and including Angel season 5.

**Disclaimer:** Everything Buffy- and Angel-related belongs to Joss Whedon, even though he doesn't deserve them – evil genius that he was. And those guys at Fox, WB, UPN, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui, Sandollar, etc. etc. whatever belongs to them (and whatever they actually call themselves these days), I can't claim any of that either. Lupe the maid from the BtVS novel, "The Deathless", belongs to Keith R. A. DeCandido; likewise, Diana Dormer from the BtVS novel "Go Ask Malice" belongs to Robert Joseph Levy. Anything else you recognize belongs to their individual owners. No profit will be made from this work, and no copyright violation is intended either.

**Feedback:** AH! The all-important part for you, the reader. Well, I'd just like to say...if you like it and you know it, tell me so (clap, clap, clap). If you like it and you know it, tell me so (clap, clap, clap). If you like it and you know it, and you really want to show it, if you like it and you know it tell me so (clap, clap, clap).

**Author's Notes:** Believe it or not, this originally started out as a PWP fanfic, but I suck at writing those – so I went in the opposite direction, and there is now very little adult content in this story. Anyway, I want to thank my beta readers Nodakskip, Greywizard and Mr. Mysterious for all their help on this fanfic, this story would have been abandoned long ago without the input from Mr. Mysterious in particular. Thanks also to Buffyworld for their collection of BtVS and Angel episode transcripts used in the writing of this fic.

**Symbols: **" " denotes speech, ( _italics _) specifies thoughts, # **bold **# is for the virus voice and / _**bold italics **_/ indicates telepathic communication.

**Warnings:** There is some violence, bad language, character death and descriptions of sexual activity in this story.

**Continuity:** This fanfic begins shortly before the start of the Scooby Gang's senior year, and progresses into season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

**Summary:** An experimental virus is stolen from the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. What do you think happens after it ends up in Sunnydale?

**Title:** Infection

* * *

"Now, this is not gonna be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content..."

(Buffy Summers, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)

"It looks like our client might be playing with a virus. Spread by touch or maybe even airborne."

(Winifred Burkle, ANGEL)

"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers."

(Ian Malcolm, JURASSIC PARK)

* * *

**Part One: Clear And Present Danger**

**Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles**

**September 7th, 1998**

The man named Lopez was rapidly losing all confidence that he would actually be able to get away with his little act of not-so-petty larceny.

A laboratory technician working for the Los Angeles branch of the law firm Wolfram & Hart (otherwise known to some as Evil Incorporated), his destiny had unexpectedly taken a major left turn last week – when Lopez had stumbled onto something he shouldn't have.

Whether it was due to pure luck or something else, Lopez had entered one of the black areas of the Special Projects division of the firm – the place which had held a new experimental virus.

Under ordinary circumstances, Lopez would never even have considered trying to steal the virus from his employers. But, unfortunately, his circumstances were far from ordinary; the lab tech had recently gotten involved with a cult named 'The Black Tomorrow', which was really into stuff like quick-fire disease scenarios. They had pressured Lopez into stealing the virus, hoping to turn it into a weapon of mass destruction.

"Where the hell have you been?" the freelance mystic named Spanky demanded irritably, as Lopez joined him in one of the bathrooms within LAX.

"Around. Here and there. Have you got it?" Lopez babbled, looking around nervously to make sure they were alone.

Spanky nodded, withdrawing a small box and giving it to Lopez. "Here you go."

Lopez grabbed the mystical vessel built to safely house the virus and hide it from detection until he could get to Mexico, where he would then hand it over to The Black Tomorrow. Spanky hadn't asked what the infectious material he'd put into the container was, and Lopez hadn't volunteered the information, either; it was safer for both of them if the freelancer simply didn't know.

( _Wait a minute...what is this?_ ) "You made it look like a bottle of Tommy Hilfiger aftershave?" Lopez asked in disbelief, after opening the box and looking at the name-brand bottle.

Spanky just shrugged as he began to leave the bathroom. "Seemed kind of appropriate, given where we were supposed to meet – toilet water, and all that."

Lopez didn't bother with a reply – he was too busy stuffing the virus container back into its box and then exiting the bathroom himself. He quickly headed for the appropriate terminal, but that was when disaster struck.

Namely, a SWAT team headed up by someone whom the lab tech recognized.

( _SHIT!_ ) Lopez thought to himself, turning around and trying to make it look like he wasn't running away from Wolfram & Hart's goon squad. ( _Now what do I do?_ )

Various scenarios ran through his head. Lopez figured there was no point in trying to get on the plane to Mexico now; someone would find his name on the passenger lists and alert the Mexico City branch of Wolfram & Hart. Most likely, the moment he disembarked the law firm would be there to grab him with the goods.

Therefore, the only hope was for him to try to brazen it out here. As far as Lopez knew, his superiors didn't have any solid proof of his guilt – otherwise, he would have already been killed.

( _Okay, I gotta get rid of the virus,_ ) Lopez thought to himself as he walked along as rapidly as he could without drawing unwelcome attention. ( _But how?_ )

A rather loud female voice grabbed Lopez's attention, as he spied a brunette teenage girl walking towards him with her parents alongside. She was carrying a number of airport shopping bags...

Desperate, Lopez came up with an idea. A half-baked one, maybe, but still an idea.

"Excuse me, sorry..." Lopez mumbled as he brushed against the teenager, and surreptitiously slipped the virus into one of her bags.

Lopez figured that not getting paid was better than getting killed, and what the heck – he might even be able to retrieve the virus later – when the chances of not getting caught and killed were a lot better.

"Watch it, you loser!" Cordelia Chase snapped at Lopez angrily before he simply faded out of existence for her, as the Chase family continued to walk along the airport corridor. The young woman then resumed her rant, "I mean, seriously, that was a summer all about dread! Daddy, not only did the Las Palmas resort have cockroaches big enough to give me nightmares, I must have gotten stress lines on my face from all the organized 'fun' you and Mom made me take part in!"

Mr. Chase exhaled wearily, sharing a look with his wife. "Cordelia? This isn't all about that Harris boy you're currently dating, is it?"

"God, no!" Cordelia shook her head vigorously. "I mean, Xander didn't want to come with us anyway! He told me-"

"Cordelia, please. It's patently obvious you weren't happy the entire summer, just because you had to leave Alexander behind," Mrs. Chase interrupted her daughter. "If I didn't know better, dear, I'd think that you were in love with that boy!"

"Me in love with Xander?" Cordelia replied with just the right level of sarcasm. She knew how her parents didn't really approve of her 'wrong side of the tracks' boyfriend. "We're just dating, Mom, it's not like we're not planning to declare our undying love for each other and elope to Las Vegas on my 18th birthday!"

"Thank you so much for those nightmares, sweetheart," Mr. Chase muttered under his breath as the group finally reached their destination and climbed into the private jet which had been waiting to take them home, via the Sunnydale Airport.

As the Chase family headed off north in their plane, the SWAT team finally caught up with Lopez just as he made it out one of the airport's exits. The lab technician tried the 'confused innocent' act first, "What's going on?"

"Orders from the head of Special Projects. You're to come back to the firm with us immediately," the man named Agent Hauser said, staring at Lopez like he was a disgusting species of vermin that was about to be put down.

"What? Why?" Lopez asked as he started backing away, caught between panic and reason. "I'm supposed to be on vacation-"

"Lopez, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice," Agent Hauser said way too calmly.

"Okay..." Lopez said, before panic won out and he turned around and bolted.

"Idiot," Hauser groaned to himself. "Get him!" he then ordered his men.

"Don't worry, sir, there's nowhere for him to go," the second-in-command said confidently before he and the other commandos ran after the target.

Unfortunately for them, the panicked Lopez tripped at precisely the wrong moment and got hit by a car – which hurled him roughly twenty feet through the air, killing the man on impact. Oddly, though, since his contract with the firm didn't include the standard perpetuity clause after death offered to the higher echelons of Wolfram & Hart – Lopez actually managed to escape his would-be captors, the only way he could.

And Cordelia Chase never knew just how close she came to tangling with Wolfram & Hart today, over a year before it had been destined to happen.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**September 9th, 1998**

The middle-aged lawyer in charge of the interdepartmental meeting was Holland Manners – a man whose soul was so dark and corrupt, it was amazing how he could hide it with such a smooth and patrician-looking exterior. His inner circle of legal protégés was also present; Lindsey McDonald, Lilah Morgan and Lee Mercer. All three were young, successful, and good-looking; but just like Holland, their souls were thoroughly polluted by the evil law firm they all worked for.

There were two other individuals present for the meeting, whose specialities were not the law. A scientist named Knox, who worked in the same department as the dearly departed Mr. Lopez – and the SWAT team commander named Burke, who had taken over from Agent Hauser.

"Well, it seems we're all present," Holland began the meeting with a beaming smile, even if no one was fooled by the act. "So let's get started, then, shall we?"

"Sounds good to me, Holland," Lilah said with just the right smile and respectful expression on her face. Lee and Lindsey instantly considered her a boot-licking brown-noser, yet nonetheless wished that they had spoken up that way first.

"Commander Burke, why don't you start us off?" Holland asked politely.

"We can't find the virus Lopez stole anywhere," Burke said bluntly. "Either by mundane or mystical means-"

"Oh, come on! It's been two days, and the seers still haven't been unable to find it? What the hell are we paying them for?" Lindsey interrupted in exasperation.

"They're doing the best they can, what with the way they've all got a gun pointed at their heads. Maybe Lopez was smarter than his last performance evaluation gave him credit for, and he did something to hide it from their perception," Lee hypothesized.

"I'd say that's definitely a possibility," Lilah spoke up. "But Holland, if I might ask – what exactly is it about this virus which makes it so important? I mean, what with the amount of resources and manpower you're putting into this operation, it makes me wonder if there's something vital we don't know about yet?"

Lindsey and Lee both glared at her, but Holland gave Lilah an approving glance. "Mr. Knox, you're our technical expert. Why don't you give everyone here a briefing on our missing virus?"

Knox took a deep breath and began to speak. "Okay, so is everyone here clear on what exactly a virus is and what it does?"

There were a number of blank stares, and Knox looked up for a moment in despair before he said, "All right, let me try to dumb it down for you people as much as I can. Think of a virus as a sub-microscopic machine – in fact, apart from the wheel, it's pretty much the simplest machine imaginable. Now, a virus exists for only one purpose: to make more of itself, to replicate and expand its numbers. It doesn't care what it kills in the process, which is what makes viruses as a whole so damn dangerous. In terms of structure, a virus is composed of either DNA or RNA-"

"What's RNA?" Burke interrupted, staring at Knox.

"It's – no, never mind. You people wouldn't understand the molecular biology anyway," Knox shook his head. "Basically, all you need to know is that our boy was engineered to have many characteristics of the flu virus – you know, high potency, high infectivity, and the ability to evade the human immune system. But it was also designed to have certain safeguards, like a kill chain to keep it from overrunning the host until such time as it was activated, and not to cause any of the bad stuff – like headaches, fever, chills and all that crap. It was created for stealth invasion in order to be able to act as an undetectable spy, and if need be, anything else that the situation required. That's why one other thing was built into it."

"What?" Lindsey, Lilah and Lee all demanded at the same time.

Knox glanced at Holland, who nodded silently. The scientist then said, "It's the one thing we hadn't perfected yet, before Lopez stole it. A mutation that gives the virus the potential for being able to think, instead of just being a mindless drone following orders."

"WHAT?" the three lawyers and Burke cried out at the same time.

"Yes. You see, Lilah, that's the reason why this project is so important," Holland remarked amiably.

"I don't get it – how can a virus think? It doesn't exactly have a brain to think with, does it?" Lindsey asked.

"That's not the point," Knox said impatiently. "Look, the individual neurons of a human brain can't think either, okay? Being able to think is the result of a concerted group effort of millions of brain cells. Now, if you can get millions of virus particles interacting with each other the same way as the neurons do inside your skull, then you end up with-"

"Artificial intelligence," Lilah completed the sentence for him, a strange look on her face. "Amazing. Still, Knox, you said that the virus has the POTENTIAL to become intelligent. Does that mean it can't think, right now?"

"Yes," Knox admitted. "The trigger for self-awareness, for becoming a sentient being, it's something we were still working on. No one's quite sure just what that trigger needs to be, although for myself, I think we've exhausted just about all the physical possibilities known to man."

"Which leaves magic," Holland mused, almost to himself.

Lindsey said, "Sir, if it ever happens – then the virus could become a problem to the firm. The damage this thing might do, if it decides it doesn't like who we are and what we stand for..."

"Yes, true enough. That's why Mr. Knox and his department have also been working on ways to neutralize the virus, if the project should go completely south," Holland replied. "Now then – Lindsey, I want you, Lilah and Lee to go over Mr. Lopez's life in detail, to find out who else if anyone was involved in this little caper. Knox, you'll continue on with your research. Commander Burke, you'll keep searching for the virus itself – and I sincerely advise you to leave no stone uncovered. I'd hate for you to suffer the same sort of fate for incompetence as your Agent Hauser and the rest of his team."

The threat was unmistakeable, and yet there was no change in Burke's expression as he, Knox and the three lawyers all filed out of the meeting room. As Holland got up, though, he was surprised to see the liaison to the Senior Partners standing in the doorway.

"The Senior Partners would like a word with you," the liaison said, as an interdimensional vortex formed above Holland's head and the middle-aged lawyer was sucked upwards into it.

"WHAT IS THERE TO REPORT?" three loud, growling voices said in unison out of the misty darkness of another dimension, as Holland struggled to regain his equilibrium.

Attempting to control his terror, Manners spoke clearly and rapidly to what he could only see as vague outlines of the Wolf, Ram and Hart.

"RETRIEVE THE VIRUS OR ELSE SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES," the Senior Partners boomed out, as another vortex formed beneath Holland's feet and he was unceremoniously dumped back into the firm's interdepartmental meeting room.

* * *

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**September 10th, 1998**

A lot had happened since Cordelia Chase had come home from her summer vacation.

Her senior year had started up, and it was as if the entire high school student body had suddenly awakened from hibernation or something. Everyone had been in a mad rush to obtain their schoolbooks from the library, as well as jockey for position within the various sports teams and school clubs. Dance and yearbook committees were being formed and the new school pecking order was being established, as various allegiances and alliances were born or reformed until Graduation finally came next year.

Cordelia had known that this year, she was going to have to do something with regard to establishing her place within Sunnydale High's social pyramid. As head cheerleader for the senior varsity football and basketball teams, not to mention easily being the richest girl in school, Cordy felt that she was automatically entitled to being at the top.

However, her choice of boyfriend was certainly an issue which had contributed to her downward mobility last year.

Alexander 'Xander' Harris. The best friend of the novice witch known as Willow Rosenberg and the Vampire Slayer known as Buffy Summers. A young man Cordelia had somehow completely lost her heart to, despite her words to her parents at the airport and the fact that Harris came from neither a rich nor an influential family.

"XANDER!" Cordelia screamed, as the male teen started wrestling with a vampire during tonight's graveyard patrol with Willow and her boyfriend, Daniel 'Oz' Osborne.

"STAKE!" Xander screamed back, trying to avoid the bloodsucker's fangs.

Oz raised Mr. Pointy and buried it into the vampire's back – but unfortunately, he missed the heart. With a snarl, the soulless creature leapt up and viciously backhanded the werewolf away.

Xander got up too, and while Willow distracted the vampire by throwing holy water in its face, Harris just barely managed to yank out Oz's stake and plunge it into the proper location.

Dust exploded everywhere, with the disintegrating remains of a skeleton seen for just the barest flicker of an instant.

"Are you all right? Are you okay?" Cordelia demanded anxiously, examining her boyfriend for any sign of injury. Then she slapped Harris on the arm, "And what exactly were you thinking just now, you dummy? You almost got yourself killed!"

"I dunno, Cor, oooh – maybe I was wanting to kill that vampire, before it decided to snack on your neck?" Xander said sarcastically, rubbing his arm.

"And it almost ended up snacking on yours instead!" Miss Chase replied angrily.

Willow ignored the bickering couple as she went over to help her boyfriend up. "Oz, are you okay?"

"Fine. Well, pretty much," Oz qualified his earlier statement as he winced when he twisted his back slightly. "There is definite 'ouch' potential here."

"Lemme see..." Willow examined her boyfriend carefully, but it looked like there was nothing worse than 'ouch' injuries present. The redhead then glanced over toward Xander and Cordelia – but, and not entirely to her surprise, those two were now kissing furiously beneath the moonlight.

Rolling her eyes Willow led Oz away, feeling somewhat annoyed that her two friends had gotten all touchy-feely like this during the patrol. A few seconds later, Xander and Cordelia finally came up for air.

"Ohhh, baby," Xander moaned. "I really missed you this summer!"

"I can tell," Cordelia moaned back, fighting the urge to do more than just kiss. ( _Get a grip, damn it, right now you're in some creepy gross cemetery!_ )

"Oh, wait!" Xander suddenly let his girlfriend go and looked around for his bag of supplies. "Honey, I wanted to give you this..." He fished out a wrapped box containing a really cheap necklace. "It's a welcome-home present. Sorry I couldn't afford to get you anything better, but I had to spend all my money on stuff for the Slayage over the summer," Harris shrugged slightly.

"That's okay," Cordelia told him, yanking out something from her own bag. "I've got something for you too, a present from after I got back from Mexico."

"What is it?" Xander asked as she placed the wrapped box in his hand.

"It's nothing much, just some cologne I picked up before we left LA," Cordelia said, not knowing the Chase family maid named Lupe had found the 'aftershave' Lopez had slipped inside Cordy's shopping bag, and she'd dutifully gift-wrapped the wrong box for her mistress.

"Aw, gee, thanks," Xander replied with a smirk as he put the gift away in his bag without opening it. "Gosh, Cor, you shouldn't have..."

"You are such a dweeb!" Cordelia told him in annoyance; she hated it whenever her boyfriend tried to push her buttons like that.

"So what does that say about the girl who was making out with said dweeb, like barely a minute ago?" Xander asked earnestly, even if the smirk gave him away.

"Ohhhh, you-!" Cordelia shouted angrily, hands on her hips and her eyes almost ablaze with fire.

And yet somehow, they were kissing all over again in that dark and gloomy cemetery less than thirty seconds later...

To Be Continued...


	2. Of Meetings And Relationships

See Part One for disclaimer and details. A big thanks to everyone so far who's reviewed and sent feedback, please keep it coming! Now as I alluded to in the author notes previously, there's a section in this chapter that's rather explicit concerning certain...acts which usually take place behind closed doors. In terms of the overall plot, though, there's a reason why this happens here and now - a reason which will be gone into later on in the story. I just thought I'd mention it beforehand for those readers who might be wondering why I've gone this route - trust in the author, the author is good! And now, on with the story...

* * *

**Part Two: Of Meetings And Relationships**

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**September 12th, 1998**

Before he headed down to the security center to find Commander Burke, Knox suddenly had an idea.

It was about time, too, if the truth were told. Knox knew that there were no guarantees of safety from the upper management of Wolfram & Hart anymore: recently, the lawyer named Robert Price had been proof of that. He had let the Senior Partners down, and they had made him eat his own liver both as a punishment and as an object lesson for everyone else at this branch of the firm.

"Commander Burke?" Knox asked as he entered a room full of television monitors, seeing the commando sitting in a chair watching them. "Could I have a word with you about the virus project?"

Burke hit a button on his console, and then turned to face the scientist. "Make it snappy."

"Right. Uh, I take it there's nothing new from that guy Spanky?"

Burke took a moment to visualise the broken and dying man in one of Wolfram & Hart's dungeon dimensions, whom Lindsey, Lilah and Lee had quickly identified as one of Lopez's associates. After he'd been apprehended, Burke had almost beaten Spanky to death with one of his own cricket bats, in order to make the freelancer cough up information – which he unfortunately didn't have.

"No," Burke then said, in reply to Knox's question.

"Well, I was just thinking," Knox said. "If Spanky and Lopez met at the airport, and yet afterwards Lopez didn't have the virus on him when Hauser and his men finally caught up with the guy, then he must have hidden it or given it to someone in the intervening time. And since we've searched LAX top to bottom and found nothing-"

"-Lopez must have palmed the virus off to someone," Burke interrupted coldly. "Don't try to tell me how to do my job. Why else do you think I've been cooped up in here, watching hours and hours of airport security video footage?"

"Right. Sorry," Knox apologized, looking embarrassed. "But the reason I mention it is, I was wondering – maybe the reason the seers can't find the virus is because it was taken somewhere where its signal is sorta being drowned out – y'know, in an area of too much magic? So, so maybe we should look for magical hotspots in and around LA that could hide it, and then focus in on that?"

Burke frowned. "Yeah. That's actually not a bad idea," he admitted gruffly, revising his estimate of Knox's intelligence.

The SWAT team commander got up off the chair. "At the very least it gives us a place to start looking, anyway."

* * *

**No. 4 Parkview Crescent, Sunnydale**

**September 13th, 1998**

Xander and Cordelia burst into Miss Chase's bedroom, passionately making out. Their date tonight had gone very well, as any disinterested observer could tell from the way they were playing tonsil hockey with one another.

"What-" kiss "about-" kiss "your parents?" Xander managed to gasp out.

"Daddy's working late as usual, and my mom's at the yacht club, socialising. Plus Lupe has the night off," Cordelia replied. She then captured Xander's lips with her own again, as the two teens fell onto the brunette girl's bed.

"Xander..." Cordelia moaned, a suspicious bulge of flesh pressing against her before she pushed him away. "Hey, stop! We need to talk."

"Would it be about something concerning the latest Spiderman treasury edition comic?" Xander asked jokingly, then he ducked to avoid Cordelia's automatic slap to the head. "Just kidding, sweetheart!"

"Well, I should hope so! We're seniors now, and you're my boyfriend. So could you please start acting like it?" Cordelia asked crossly as she got up off the bed.

"The high school senior part, or the Cordelia Chase boyfriend part?" Xander asked.

"Both, you idiot!" Cordelia said, glaring at him.

"Huh," Xander mused. "I'm a high school senior, and I'm dating Cordelia Chase. Kinda makes me wonder how the heck that ever happened."

"What's there to wonder about?" Cordelia asked, calming herself as she started to sit down again. "I mean, your grades were never that bad. And you were never one of the elite, sure – but you were never exactly one of the chess club nerds, either. In fact, I'd say your geek cred has almost dried up completely ever since you started dating me."

"You're right, I guess," Xander exhaled, recalling ancient days when he had hung out with the Dungeons and Dragons crowd – before they had ruthlessly ejected him for being unable to fit in properly.

( _At least with all the popular kids, I knew where I stood with them right from the start. _) "So, what were you wanting to talk about?" Harris asked, putting away such thoughts.

"We need to talk about where this relationship is going," Cordelia said seriously.

"Oh boy," Xander said fearfully, as that was the one sentence that just about every male dreaded hearing from the females of the species.

"Will you be serious for a second?" Miss Chase demanded. "Because I've invested a lot in 'us' over the past year or so, and I'm getting worried about you, Xander. The other night, I thought for sure you were going to die thanks to that vampire! If Oz had been just a fraction slower...God, can't you PLEASE take a break from the whole Slayage thing? At least for a little while?"

"Sorry, honey, but that's not an option," Xander said, shaking his head. "Until Buffy comes back-"

"Oh, here we go," Cordelia cut him off, rolling her eyes. Her boyfriend's near-obsession with the Slayer was majorly annoying to her. "Xander, Buffy takes off for God only knows where back in May, and YOU decide to step up and try to take her place?"

"Well, someone had to. The vampires were out there killing and turning people every night, remember?" Xander said with a rather hard tone of voice.

"And so you decided to switch from being a sidekick to a wannabe Slayer, over the summer? Do you have any idea how often I wondered whether you'd gotten yourself killed, instead of enjoying some time off from school with me?" Cordelia wanted to know.

"Cordy, could we please not do this right now?" Xander asked wearily. "You said it yourself, we're seniors – isn't that supposed to mean we've grown up ever since last year? That we don't have to get into a fight about something every thirty seconds or so?"

"Fine," Cordelia said sulkily.

"Seriously, honey, I don't want to fight with you – not tonight, anyway. Can't we just kiss and make up, already?" Xander asked pleadingly.

"Oh, all right. Well, I'm good with the kissing part, anyway," Miss Chase briefly smirked before they started smooching all over again.

Things quickly started heating up and somehow Xander managed to get Cordelia's sweater off, stripping her down to her bra in the process. To this hormonal young man, the sight of the buxom girl's chest was just completely...wow!

Harris wanted to reach forward and unhook the only thing separating him from her – but he figured that he shouldn't, it might be pushing things too far, too soon. That didn't stop him from letting the Chase girl unbutton his shirt and toss it aside, however, as she started kissing her way down his chest, swirling her tongue around his belly button whilst grasping his hips tightly.

When Cordelia lifted her head to look at him, her hazel eyes were almost gleaming with excitement. "Mind if I take off your pants?"

"Uh, uh, go ahead..."

There was no way in the world Xander could say no to that, not whilst his girlfriend had that look on her face – and there was even the slightest possibility that this would be THE night he'd dreamed about, ever since they'd started sucking face in Buffy's basement.

( _Lord, I'll do anything you want tomorrow – just PLEASE let me have tonight!_ ) Xander prayed fervently, shutting his eyes. Even though he should have remembered that in Sunnydale, prayers like that – they often had a nasty habit of being granted. Just not in the way the person praying wanted.

Cordelia beamed like she'd just won the state lottery, before unbuckling her boyfriend's pants and working his zipper open – and then she let out a big hearty laugh.

"What?" Xander demanded, eyes flying open in surprise before he remembered that he was wearing his Transformers boxers this evening. "Okay, never mind; let's just forget this whole-"

Harris cut himself off, squeaking as he felt a sharp tug accompanied by the feeling of trousers slipping away, and his boxers sliding off. The cool air of the bedroom hit his groin and a certain something hardened even further, despite Xander previously believing that to be impossible.

Xander's eyes rolled back into his head as a new sensation, something hot and wet and delicious, encircled him down south. He then jammed his head back against the pillow – because this wasn't a dream, Cordelia's tongue was making his brain shut down completely, and Harris knew he definitely wouldn't last long before he actually...

* * *

**Cordelia's bedroom, Sunnydale**

**September 14th, 1998**

Cordelia Chase woke up slowly, finding herself buck naked and her head resting on her boyfriend's equally naked chest. She started to panic for a moment, until all the memories of last night came back.

"Hmm, a girl could get used to this," Cordy said with a soft smile, as she snuggled closer for a few moments. But when she glanced over to check her alarm clock, she saw what time it was.

( _Damn it!_ ) Cordelia swore inside her head. "Xander!" the Chase girl then said as she propped herself up on one elbow and shook him. "Wake up, dweeb boy!"

"Huh? Cordy-?" Xander said fuzzily, not recognizing where he was. Then the memories came back for him as well, and his eyes went wide as he sat up. "OH! That, that, that wasn't just another highly erotic dream-?"

"No, we kind of went a lot further than we ever did before..." the brunette female said before she stopped. "Wait – another erotic dream? You have erotic dreams about me?"

"Ah, yeah," Harris admitted. "Along with every other guy that goes to our school – well, except maybe for Larry, I guess." He grinned at her. "Have to say, though, I was not expecting what happened last night."

Miss Chase sat up, but held the covers to cover herself somewhat. "I guess it was just a spur of the moment thing...after that summer of celibacy, and with you back here in Hellville."

"Hey, I'm definitely not complaining," Xander joked.

"Yeah, you sure didn't when I was sucking you off," Cordelia snorted, she'd figured that he would enjoy that. "And hey, that thing you did with your fingers later on..." She shivered. "Trust me, Xander, that is definitely going to happen again. But for now it's time for you to climb down the balcony onto the patio, and then go home."

"Oh, so that's how it is?" Xander joked. "You just use me, and then kick me to the side of the curb? I feel so cheap..."

Cordelia reached down onto the floor, grabbed his underwear and threw it to him. "I'm supposed to get up for school soon, doofus. And do you really want my father to find you in here?"

"Good point," Xander nodded, as he hurriedly jumped out of the bed and started to put his boxers on. "Look at me, I'm more afraid of Mr. Chase than a vampire!"

"Yeah, well, I would be too. A vampire's nothing compared to my dad on the warpath," Cordelia said as she slipped into her bathrobe.

After the guy had finished dressing, he moved to the sliding glass doors at the far end of the bedroom. "Oh, Xander?" Cordelia called out from the bathroom, her head just sticking out.

"Yeah?"

Cordy flashed him a huge smile as she told him, "If you want what happened at the start of last night to happen again...then you better be ready to return the favour."

"Yes ma'am," Xander nodded as he slipped out the sliding doors, very grateful that the Chase parents' bedroom was on the other side of the mansion – thus they wouldn't see him run across the lawn.

Within the bathroom Cordelia was just about to slip out of her robe, when Miss Chase spotted something on the far counter. ( _Hey, isn't that the cologne I got for Xander?_ )

The young woman quickly gave it a squirt on her wrist. ( _That smells right, but I thought Xander said he had it on last night? Huh, did I grab two bottles of aftershave by mistake or what?_ ) Frowning, she put it back on the counter. ( _Come to think of it, I didn't smell anything like this on him last night. So, mental note to self – tell the dorkhead to use this aftershave instead, after I give it to him at school later today._ )

Cordelia closed the door fully and removed the bathrobe, before she stepped into her large shower. ( _Ah, this feels great,_ ) the Chase girl thought to herself as she stood underneath the shower head, the water cascading down all over her body.

As she started to apply her expensive body wash to remove the various fluids from last night, Cordelia thought back on what had happened during the previous evening. She honestly hadn't planned on going all the way with Xander for a while yet. Not that she was the type of girl that wanted to wait 'til she was married, of course, if Sunnydale had taught her anything it was to live life to the fullest while you still could. Too many of her classmates had just vanished into the night, ever since she was a kid.

The thing was, though, last night was not her first time sexually with a guy – but Cordy was never going to let Xander know that. The senior football player she'd dated during junior year was now long gone, and she hoped never to see the jackass again. It had taken a lot of threats to make sure he never told anyone about their one time together, not long after she'd almost been eaten by the demon called Machida. Of course, it didn't hurt that her father owned the company his dad worked for.

And, Cordelia mused with a grin, Xander had lasted a lot longer than that jerk did.

Despite her attempts to suppress it, the thought of Xander lasting brought up another thought in Cordelia's mind. How long would he last as the substitute Slayer? How long would any of them last – Willow, Oz, Xander and herself?

For roughly the millionth time, Cordelia Chase cursed Buffy Summers for entering her life and making her aware of the real world containing demons and vampires. Although she grudgingly had to admit that if Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, then she and Xander would have never found each other either.

They would have still known each other, sure, but their conversations would have always degenerated into the traditional insults and abuse without the heart-pounding fear and excitement making Xander become sexually attractive to her.

Still, if you had to pin it down for why Cordelia disliked the Slayer so much...it was that thing about how Xander had fallen in love with Buffy first, back in sophomore year. The Summers girl had never returned his feelings, granted, but Cordy knew it was important to remind Xander every so often that the former object of his affections actually preferred a centuries-old vampire to a guy like him.

Cordelia Chase had a brain and used it, thank you very much!

* * *

**1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale**

**Later that day**

Whilst elsewhere Xander was being questioned by Willow on what he had gotten up to last night – thanks to that silly grin she'd seen plastered all over his face – Joyce Summers was trying to get a stuck utensil out of the dishwasher.

The middle-aged blonde woman was the mother of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and right now, she was missing her runaway daughter so much it hurt. Joyce was so afraid Buffy would either call or show up when she wasn't at home, that she almost never left the house anymore.

As noted, Buffy had left Sunnydale back in May after she'd been expelled from school. That had been when her mother had finally found out the truth about the Slayage thing – and in her anger and confusion, Joyce had told Buffy that if she walked out the door whilst her mother was laying down the law to her, not to bother to come back.

Joyce honestly hadn't expected that Buffy would take her words at face value, apart from briefly sneaking in to grab some of her stuff before the Slayer had headed out of town.

( _It's all that Mr. Giles's fault,_ ) Joyce thought to herself bitterly, and not for the first time either. ( _For the past two years he's been this huge influence on her, guiding my little girl on so many things without my knowing. He had this, this vitally important relationship with her, completely behind my back. It's like he took her away from me – oh, damn it, Buffy, where ARE you right now?_ )

At that moment, there was a loud knock at the front door and Joyce looked up, startled. She frowned at the fork she'd just pulled out of the dishwasher and put it down. Then she got up, grabbed a towel and headed for the door, wiping her hands.

In the dining room Joyce paused and looked toward the door, suddenly wondering who might be there. ( _It can't be Mr. Giles, surely? Now that the high school's started up again, he's stuck there until at least four o'clock during the weekdays._ )

Joyce draped the towel over a chair and slowly went over to the door. When she opened it, there stood Buffy; looking sad, tired and dishevelled after her long bus journey home from LA – and her escape from a demon dimension where she'd briefly been held captive.

Seeing Joyce within the doorway the blonde girl morosely thought to herself, ( _Okay, she'll either start screaming at me, or we'll do the whole sweet forgiveness thing. Wonder which one it'll be?_ )

For a long moment, mother and daughter just looked at each other, without saying a word. Then Buffy and Joyce stepped forward and grabbed hold of each other for a long, tight embrace.

( _Oh yeah, there's no place like home sweet Hellmouth,_ ) Buffy thought happily, holding her mother tight and glad to finally be home.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**September 15th, 1998**

Another interdepartmental meeting was taking place within Evil Incorporated. The same players were present as before, including the man in charge.

Holland looked around and said, "The Senior Partners are growing impatient for results with regard to the virus project, people. I trust there will be something positive I can relay to their liaison after this meeting?"

"We've been going over a number of magical hotspots where the virus might be hidden, as per Knox's suggestion," Lilah replied with an almost feral smile to the scientist. "In the greater metropolitan area, there's one within a demon nightclub called Caritas, and another in a public library, and another near a movie studio. All of them were a bust, though, unfortunately."

"There were some other places as well in the Hollywood hills; a lot of the rich like to use magic in order to hide what they get up to. No success there either," Lee reported.

"We then spread the search further out in a series of concentric circles, and eventually encountered something about eighty miles north of here," Lindsey said carefully, trying to gauge his boss's mood.

"The Hellmouth," Holland nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that would be powerful enough to mask the virus from long-distance detection by the seers, especially adding in Mr. Spanky's handiwork. All right, what have we got on who might have gone to Sunnydale that day from the airport?"

"I went through all the plane passenger lists with a fine tooth comb, after the initial screen the same day Lopez died," Burke said. "There was nothing – until we finally found this."

He nodded to Knox, who pressed a few buttons on his laptop. The room's overhead projector switched on, and a three-dimensional image appeared of Lopez brushing by the Chase family – in particular, Cordelia.

"Meet David Chase, his wife Julia and teenage daughter Cordelia," Knox said in satisfaction, as the three-dimensional image began to rotate in the room. "You can see it, right there – Lopez's hand dipping inside Miss Chase's shopping bag. He used her like a drug mule, that clever son of a bitch!"

"Why did it take so long to identify her?" Holland asked with a look that instantly made everyone jumpy – apart from Commander Burke.

"It was damn near impossible to have even gotten this far this quickly, because her name – as well as her picture – wasn't on any airline passenger list. Which in turn was due to the fact that Miss Chase and her family were passing through from Mexico on their way home to Sunnydale, on their own private jet," Burke grated out.

"I see," Holland mused, as Burke then reported on how the very rich family had stopped over in LA because of Mr. Chase's various business interests. Thus giving Cordy time to shop and buy that cologne gift for her boyfriend, and for Lopez to bump into her as well.

The meeting quickly broke up, as Holland beckoned Burke to come with him and his pet seer before Manners released the others to go back to their regular duties. A quick helicopter ride later and they were all on the outskirts of Sunnydale, just beyond the town limits.

"Can you detect the virus at this distance?" Holland asked the psychic, a beautiful blonde woman in a red dress and a black necklace around the base of her throat.

"Lemme concentrate. I'm still trying to reorient myself after you dragged me out of my pilates class without any warning, you know," the woman replied.

"I find that getting hit on the head with a gun barrel helps with that a lot," Burke said menacingly.

"You want me to find this thing for you? Keep your pet gorilla on a leash," the blonde said disparagingly to Holland, after she gave Burke a withering glance.

"Enough, both of you," Holland said disapprovingly, before he focused on the lady in red. "Just find the virus. Now."

The psychic closed her eyes. "I call upon the guardian of night and day, the keeper of the passage. Let my sight flow from what is, to what has passed. Grant me your knowledge of the lost..." she trailed off. "Found it!"

"That was quick. Are you sure?" Burke demanded.

The woman ignored him, looking at Holland. "I haven't found all of it, granted – just a trace. It must have escaped from its container and infected someone."

"Miss Chase?" Burke demanded.

"No," the psychic woman shook her head, finally acknowledging the commando. "Whoever it is, the human vessel is male – I'm sure of that much. But the Hellmouth's interference is such that I can't get anything more."

She saw Holland's look and said, "You're welcome to try using someone else if you want, but any honest seer will give you the same answer I just did. This place..." the blonde gestured towards Sunnydale in disgust. "Even at this distance, it's spewing out some serious evil energy. Gives me the complete heebie-jeebies."

"Well, then. I guess we've got some good old-fashioned detective work to do," Holland glanced at Commander Burke, who simply nodded and gazed at the town built upon the mouth of Hell impassively.

To Be Continued...


	3. Awakening

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello again, everyone, welcome to the latest chapter of the story! Thanks again for all the reviews and feedback, wow - it really was kind of unexpected. Well, anyway, here is the Dead Man's Party episode, or at least my evil and twisted version of it. Trust me, things are only going to get complicated from here...

* * *

**Part Three: Awakening**

**Sunnydale High School Library, Sunnydale**

**September 16th, 1998**

Xander looked at the cat which Giles had collected earlier from Buffy's house, and which was moving around in its cage on one of the library's tables. "That thing is dead, right?"

"It looks dead. It smells dead," Oz proclaimed, as Xander nodded in full agreement. "And yet, it's still movin' around. That's interesting."

"Interesting? Try way creepy," Cordelia said, dragging Xander away to the main table as Oz followed them and sat down next to Willow. "Seriously, Giles, don't you like doing anything normal in your life? Golf, collecting stamps, something?"

Giles looked irritated, as he came down from the mezzanine level with a book in his hand. "I'm trying to find out how and why that creature rose from its grave, as should all of you. It's not as if I'm going to take it home and offer it a saucer of warm milk!"

"Fine, no need to be such a big grouch about it," Cordelia replied as she grabbed a book.

Cordy then noticed Xander staring at her – he had been doing that a lot ever since the other night – and the young woman quickly looked away with a smile. ( _Yes! Finally, my boyfriend is paying attention to ME instead of his precious Buffy or Willow. God, I probably should have had sex with him ages ago! Well, as long as he doesn't start acting like that lovesick puppy Jesse, of course – may he rest in peace._ )

Willow noticed the by-play between them, and looked away with a grossed-out expression. ( _I can't believe Xander actually had sex with HER! What, did Cordelia lose a bet or something?_ ) The Rosenberg girl then said, "So, what about Buffy's welcome home dinner tonight? I told her mom we'd help out. Y'know, bring stuff."

Giles scratched the back of his neck. His meeting with Buffy the previous evening, not long after she'd arrived home and hugged Joyce on her doorstep, had convinced him that the Chosen One wasn't completely back to normal after her summer sojourn. ( _Buffy was definitely far too jittery in my flat last night, even taking into account nervousness after such a long time away._ )

Still, the situation with this dead tabby was something Giles knew he couldn't simply ignore, either. So he said to his teenage companions, "Well, you all go ahead and do that – I'll be along later in time for the festive occasion, I'm sure. A-as soon as I figure out what's happening with that dead cat, I mean."

"Something occurring," Oz spoke up in his typically laid-back sort of way. "We should figure out what kinda deal this is gonna be tonight, right? I mean, is it a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?"

"What's the difference?" Willow asked, momentarily glancing at Xander in exasperation – she knew him well enough to tell when her best guy friend was distracted playing footsie with Cordelia under the table.

"Well, a gathering is y'know, brie, mellow song stylings, maybe a little alcohol. Shindig – that's dip, less mellow song stylings, usually a large amount of malt beverage. And hootenanny, that's chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny," Oz replied sagely.

"Well, I'm not sure that either a, um, shindig o-or hootenanny, i-i-is really appropriate here. Uh, it should be something a little more – intimate. I mean, Buffy has just arrived home, I-I'm sure she's still feeling a little disoriented," Giles replied.

In response to their looks, the British man said to Willow and Oz, "Don't tell me I was the only one who noticed it last night?"

"Huh? What?" Xander suddenly woke up and decided to join the conversation. Well, that was before Cordelia's shoe-less foot reaching up to massage his groin caused his eyes to widen and his mouth to start watering. Not surprisingly, Harris quickly returned his attention to his smiling girlfriend.

"Buffy was disoriented?" Willow replied to Giles, paying Xander no heed. "Well, then, that's all the more reason to make her feel welcome, a-and a big party definitely says, 'Welcome back, Buffy'!"

"Yes, I suppose so, but still – I know my Slayer, Willow. I-if Buffy had wanted a big party, she would have hinted as such during your, um, shopping trip yesterday, wouldn't she?" the Watcher asked the redhead.

"Well, I don't know – I-I sorta couldn't make it to the whole shoe-hunting expedition thing," Willow said, looking embarrassed.

"Then in that case, I think we should play it safe a-and just have a nice, quiet family dinner at Buffy's house," Giles said firmly. "What does everyone else think?"

"Sounds cool," Oz said, leaning back into his seat.

"I'll bring the brie," Cordelia said, finally withdrawing her foot from Xander's pelvic region.

"Oh yeah," Xander nodded, still in la-la land and not paying any attention to the actual conversation.

"Excellent, then that's settled." Giles looked over towards the dead cat, which had started meowing. "Now, let's get on with solving the mystery associated with this, um, feline, shall we?"

It was too bad for Giles how, after getting distracted by the zombie cat, he missed out on seeing a picture of a Nigerian mask in his book; the same mask that he had seen hanging on the wall within the Summers residence not long ago.

The mask which held the power of the evil demon named Ovu Mobani within it.

* * *

**Outside 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale**

**Later that night**

Xander got out of his girlfriend's car, as he and Cordelia headed for Buffy's house. He stared at the statuesque beauty and whistled, "You look incredible, sweetheart."

Cordy gave him her classic megawatt smile. "Thanks, you don't look too bad yourself. Oh, how's my hair?"

"You even have to ask?" Harris quipped, and then he grinned as she gave him a light shove. "Hey, I'm wearing that new aftershave you gave me tonight. How does it smell to you?"

Cordelia took a big sniff, and nodded in approval. "Perfect. Y'know, I still don't get how that happened, how I ended up grabbing two bottles of cologne! It's the last time I ever buy stuff like that at a lousy airport store, though, I tell you – to think, one of them was a useless dud!" Miss Chase said in annoyance, not knowing just how wrong her supposition was.

"Eh, never mind – no harm, no foul. Think happy thoughts, Cor – we're gonna have a nice, normal, fun evening tonight, right?" Xander asked optimistically.

"Okay, now I'm sure you've just jinxed us completely," Cordelia snorted as she rang the front doorbell, before Buffy let them into the house.

Cordelia was, unfortunately, more right than she knew.

Later that night, a lot of angst and hard feelings quickly rose to the surface after Buffy and Willow started talking alone in the Slayer's bedroom – and it was discovered that something had happened back in May which neither of the girls had known about.

That is to say, Xander's big lie concerning Buffy's former boyfriend, the vampire known as Angel.

It had all started during Buffy's 17th birthday nine months ago, when the soul curse had been broken due to Angel having a moment of perfect happiness. When the demon statue Acathla had been found towards the end of junior year, Angelus – Angel's evil soulless alter ego – had decided to destroy the world using the great big ugly piece of rock. Willow had been trying to do the curse on Angelus again during the bottom of the ninth, and she'd sent Xander to tell Buffy the situation.

And yet Xander had lied to the Chosen One outside Angelus' mansion that day, saying that Willow had said for Buffy to 'kick his ass' instead.

"XANDER, HOW DARE YOU-!" Buffy screamed at the male teenager, as she and Willow stormed down the stairs.

"Huh? What?" Xander and all the other dinner guests got up from the chairs and sofa.

"Buffy, what's going on?" Joyce looked confused.

"This ASSHOLE lied to me!" Buffy glared at Harris with the fury of an exploding supernova. "Willow sent you to tell me that she was going to do the soul curse again, and you told me she said to kick Angel's ass? You fucking liar!"

"BUFFY!" Joyce looked scandalized at her daughter's use of the f-word. Then she turned towards Xander, who everybody was now staring at. "Uh, is, is that true?"

"Yep," Xander nodded once, looking the Slayer straight in the eyes.

"So, you admit it!" Buffy said vindictively, not seeing Cordelia staring at her boyfriend in horror. Upon witnessing Xander's stony features the Chosen One then demanded, "What, you aren't even going to try to weasel your way out of this?"

"What's the point, Buffy? I knew what would happen right from the start if you and Willow ever compared notes, but I still did what I did anyway," Harris replied. "I'd like to ask you something, though – what would you have done if I had told you the truth that morning?"

"I would have done – I don't know, something! Something different, so that Angel wouldn't have had to end up in Hell after his soul was restored at the last second!" Buffy screamed.

"The curse actually worked?" Willow said in amazement.

"Whoa. Heavy," Oz commented, but displaying no sign of untoward emotion.

"Okay, can I say something? Buffy, why don't you give Xander a chance to fully explain himself – before you start whaling on him like he deserves?" Cordelia spoke up, sending her boyfriend an angry glare.

"Fine. Well?" Buffy growled at Xander, who was staring at Cordelia like he was saying farewell to something he'd lost forever; but then Harris straightened up and focused back on the Slayer.

"Buffy, I'm not gonna deny that I wanted Angel dead that day, because I did – everyone that guy killed ever since he lost his soul, they all deserved some sorta justice. Especially Ms. Calendar," Xander said as calmly as he could, noticing both Willow and Buffy flinch at the mention of the dead computer teacher's name. "But believe it or not, that wasn't the real reason why I lied to you."

"Then what was it? Wait, lemme guess. It couldn't be, oh, say, the fact that I chose ANGEL as my boyfriend instead of your jealous, pathetic ass?" Buffy shouted furiously.

"No-" Xander started to say, before a louder female voice cut him off.

"HEY! Xander's girlfriend, standing right here!" Cordelia huffed at the Chosen One. Pissed as she was at Harris right now, Miss Chase was still naturally defensive of her territory.

"Shut up, Cordelia, this has got nothing to do with you!" Buffy yelled at the high society princess, the Slayer being in no mood to deal with her attitude right now.

"Well, that's rich coming from you, you self-centred freak!" Cordelia shouted furiously.

"Okay, I, I think we all need to just calm down here..." Joyce said uncertainly, even though no one was paying any attention to her.

"So why did you do it, Xander? If it wasn't because you hated Angel that much, and it wasn't because of the jealousy factor, then WHY?" Willow demanded of her oldest friend.

"Honestly, Will? Because I thought you'd fail to pin Angel's soul back on the donkey, what with you being straight out of that coma and all. I mean, let's not forget how you tried it the first time and failed, and Kendra ended up dead as well. The second time around, I figured that if Buffy thought there was even a one in a billion chance that she'd get her undead boyfriend back, then she wouldn't go all out in the fight – in other words, Overbite would finally quit playing games and kill her, and we'd have had Hell on Earth for the past four months now," Xander told Willow.

"What?" Joyce demanded, staring at her daughter in horror. "Buffy, you-you never told me any of this!"

"Xander, I can't believe that you had so little confidence in me," Willow started to complain, even as Buffy avoided her mother's look. The redhead then added, "Because I DID do it, head injury or otherwise!"

"It doesn't matter now. Because as far as I'm concerned, Xander, our friendship is officially over," Buffy spat out. "So get out of my house, and don't ever come back!"

"Buffy!" Joyce exclaimed, looking at her daughter in shock.

"No, no, it's okay, I'll leave. Like I said, I knew what the consequences would be right from the start," Xander shook his head as he headed towards the door. "G'night, Mrs. Summers, and thanks for the meal."

Willow stared at Oz, but the werewolf musician made no attempt to stop Xander from leaving, and so the fledgling witch decided not to do anything either. She was still hurt over what she considered to be Xander's ultimate act of betrayal, and so Miss Rosenberg just gravitated over to her boyfriend and held him tightly.

But as was typical of things in Sunnydale, the supernatural made itself known when the front door was suddenly blasted off its hinges, and buried Harris underneath it as a horde of zombies came swarming into the house.

"XANDER!" Cordelia screamed as Buffy dragged her backwards, and then rushed to seize some sort of weapon.

"Are, are those vampires?" Joyce looked terrified, as her daughter grabbed an andiron from the fireplace and starting swinging at the zombies.

"I don't think so," Willow said fearfully as Cordelia grabbed a vase and smashed one of the zombies over the head with it.

"Everybody, upstairs!" Oz called out, as the group ran up to the second floor of the house whilst Buffy continued to vent her anger on the zombies. Strangely, the walking dead mostly just ignored her as they all headed up the stairs as well.

"Buffy! Are you all right?" Giles said as he finally showed up for the evening.

"Yeah, I – Xander!" Buffy shoved the front door off of him, and was relieved to find that he was still alive. Then she turned back to her Watcher, "Giles, WHAT is going on here?"

"It's the mask in your mother's bedroom, that's what they're after," Giles said rapidly, looking rather the worse for wear after his adventures with the zombies tonight. "The mask of Ovu Mobani, the Evil Eye. Buffy, that's what's been resurrecting the dead lately – and if one of the zombies should put the mask on, it'll become the demon incarnate. You have to stop it from happening!"

"And if I can't?" Buffy said hurriedly, heading for the stairs.

"Mobani's power lies in his eyes. You have to go for the eyes, in order to defeat him!" Giles called out as Buffy left. Then he tried to rouse Xander from the depths of unconsciousness. "Xander? Xander! Wake up!"

Harris eventually did so, just as one of the zombies succeeded in putting the mask on, but Buffy tackled the demon and they crashed out of her bedroom window – while the rest of her friends and her mother continued to fight for their lives against the walking dead.

Outside, the Slayer and the demon tumbled down off the roof and onto the front lawn. A moment later, Xander showed up and grabbed a shovel off the ground. Immediately after Ovu Mobani had paralysed Buffy with its stare, he jammed the shovel into the demon's eyes, embedding the digging tool deep inside its head.

In a flash of brilliant white light, Ovu Mobani disappeared. The zombies did too, as all the supernatural energy present was released in an uncontrolled burst.

And to Xander's great misfortune, what with the Wolfram & Hart virus having infected his body three days ago – that was just the sort of magical 'trigger' needed for the virus to become self-aware within its host.

( _What is happening?_ ) the now-sentient virus asked itself, as it stopped its normal activities and tried to figure things out. ( _Where am I? WHO am I? Where did I come from_? )

All good questions, to be sure. And all of which would eventually be answered in the fullness of time.

* * *

**The Espresso Pump, Sunnydale**

**September 17th, 1998**

Whilst Giles was attempting to convince Principal Snyder to let Buffy back into the school, Willow and the Slayer were talking within the coffee shop – before they laughingly indulged in a bit of name-calling.

Willow said with a grin, "Bailer."

"Harpy," Buffy responded glibly.

"Delinquent."

"Tramp."

Willow yelped, taking mock offense, "Bad seed!"

"Witch," Buffy riposted in kind.

"Freak," Willow laughed, before she suddenly sobered up.

"What is it, Will?" Buffy asked, seeing her best friend's change in expression.

"I'm sorry, Buffy, I-I shouldn't have said that one. Y'know, since that's what Cordy called you last night," Miss Rosenberg said apologetically.

"Eh, don't worry about it. A lot of things were said last night, most of 'em not good," Buffy shrugged. "Did you talk to Cordelia at school today?"

"Yeah," Willow nodded glumly. "She said that she and Xander had a fight about whether or not he was still interested in you – even though he, like, promised Cordy that that ship had totally sailed. She also mentioned how they're now officially on a break. Not a break-up, just a break – and not so much for the lie way back when, but the fact that Xander didn't trust Cordelia enough to confide the big secret to her."

Buffy shrugged again. "Well, I guess that's Cordelia Chase logic for you. Still, good for her – she can do better than that guy, I'm sure."

Willow hesitated for a moment. "About Xander, Buff-"

"I don't want him around me, Willow," Buffy interrupted at once. "Despite what happened with that zombie demon on my front lawn last night, things are not okay between me and him. What Xander did that day outside the mansion – look, I can understand his reasons, even if I don't agree with 'em at all. Still, the fact that he lied and he made no apologies for it just totally pisses me off right now, and until I'm calm enough to deal with it? Xander may as well not exist, as far as I'm concerned," Buffy said to Willow with an air of grim finality.

"Do you think there's any chance you two'll get past this, and be friends again one day?" Willow asked without much hope, hating the fact that she now had to choose between her two best friends.

"I don't know. Maybe, but Xander needs to grow up a bit first and apologize for what he did," Buffy said.

( _Oh boy,_ ) Willow thought to herself miserably, she knew better than anyone just how stubborn Xander Harris could be – and thus, what the odds were of THAT ever happening.

* * *

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Holland Manners sat in the visitor's chair, and gazed at the Mayor of Sunnydale calmly.

For his part, Richard Wilkins eyed the lawyer from Wolfram & Hart a lot more intently. He had had an agreement with the Senior Partners ever since the previous century and, up until now, it had been a profitable arrangement for both sides. The Mayor paid his tribute to them and kept the Hellmouth under control, and the Wolf, Ram and Hart assisted in making Sunnydale a virtual paradise for the vampires and demons he allowed to stay, as well as warning him of any unfavourable elements heading his way.

But the appearance of their flunky here and now made Wilkins wonder whether the firm had discovered his plans for Ascension next year. ( _Golly, I certainly hope not. That would be no good at all!_ )

"Well, now, Mr. Manners, what can I do for you and your law firm today?" Wilkins suddenly asked with a toothy politician's smile.

"Mayor Wilkins, I'm afraid I have a bit of a problem. According to the firm's seers, some valuable commercial property of Wolfram & Hart has fallen into the hands of one of Sunnydale's residents," Holland replied smoothly, his eyes never leaving the Mayor's.

Richard frowned. "Well, I certainly hope that none of my constituents have gotten up to any sort of illegal tomfoolery?"

"No – or at least, not intentionally," Manners replied. "However, the situation is a bit tricky, and your co-operation would be appreciated in retrieving our missing virus."

"A virus? Eww, germs! I can't abide them. Tell me, Mr. Manners, what can I do to help?" Wilkins had a distasteful look on his face.

Holland just smiled like a reptile as he heard the Mayor say that.

"I'm glad you asked. Now, the situation is such that a certain Miss Cordelia Chase inadvertently brought the virus here from Los Angeles, but it's no longer in her possession – she gave it away, due to its disguise as a bottle of aftershave. According to my information, she gifted the virus to her boyfriend, a young man named Alexander Harris-"

"The Slayer's little friend? Or former friend, anyway," Wilkins interrupted. He had eyes and ears everywhere in this town, and thus already knew the current situation with the members of the so-called Scooby Gang.

"Yes, Miss Buffy Summers. I've heard how she was in Los Angeles for quite a few months recently, but kept completely underneath the radar – no vampire or demon kills at all. I couldn't help wondering why." Holland then shook his head in dismissal of that question. "Still, that doesn't matter right now. My problem is Mr. Harris, and that virus he's been infected with."

Richard Wilkins the Third (and the Second, and the First) cocked his head slightly, before he smiled. ( _Well, what's one less student to feed on in roughly nine months' time? He'd probably just give me an upset stomach after what's happened to him, anyway._ )

"Feel free to retrieve that virus, Mr. Manners. Whichever way you like," the Mayor quickly gave his blessing to the evil lawyer's scheme.

Even though if he'd known what was good for him, Wilkins really, really shouldn't have done that.

To Be Continued...


	4. Gut Reactions

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello, everyone, welcome to the latest chapter of the story! Not much to say on this one, except - nothing is necessarily what it seems. Oh, and a big thanks to everyone who's reviewed the fanfic, of course! Like I've said before, I'm a feedback junkie. So PLEASE tell me what you think! Praise or flames, it doesn't matter to me as long as people hit that big ol' shiny review hyperlink.

* * *

**Part Four: Gut Reactions**

**17619 White Oak Drive****, Sunnydale**

**September 17th, 1998**

That night Xander Harris looked at a framed photo of him, Buffy and Willow in one hand, and the bottle of Calvin Klein aftershave Cordelia had given to him in his other hand, before he symbolically dumped both items into the trash basket in his room.

Because it had not been a good day for him at school today.

The news that Cordelia had ditched him had spread like wildfire throughout Sunnydale High. Thus, Harris had been the butt of a lot of jokes and snide remarks from the Cordettes, the sycophantic popular girls who believed their leader had finally snapped out of her temporary insanity – in other words, dating him.

Xander had initially figured it would just take some time for Cordelia to understand why he'd kept her in the dark about what Buffy had dubbed the 'Big Lie', but after today he didn't think so any longer. Harmony and her friends were doing their best to poison Cordy's mind against him, and the odds were it was all over between them for good.

Not to mention the teachers had ignored him, the jocks had belittled him, and none of his friends were speaking to him anymore.

And just to cap off his best day ever, the young man suspected he was catching a cold as well.

The thing was, of course, that Xander didn't know that he had been infected by a virus which could now think for itself. The newborn life-form had explored its home thoroughly, casting off the safeguards created by Wolfram & Hart and infecting almost every cell in Xander's body – before realizing just how frail and fragile its host was, and how close to killing its life-support system it had come.

( _I almost destroyed myself by my actions. That must not happen again,_ ) the virus thought emotionlessly, like the biological machine it was. ( _I will have to be more careful. From now on, I shall feed only on cells that are dying anyway as part of their natural cycle, on all those excess fat cells, and on the cells which do not belong here._ )

The virus was referring to a number of anomalous species it had found in Xander's body, leftovers from his possessions by a Primal Hyena spirit and the Soldier Guy persona last Halloween, and the exposure to those fish steroids created by the late Sunnydale High swim team coach, Carl Marin. Soon enough, the virus had completely consumed those cells with such altered DNA, despite their potential to be beneficial to its host.

( _That is unfortunate,_ ) the virus thought to itself, its intelligence growing exponentially as it realised what it had just done. ( _My rather limited understanding caused me to completely waste a possibly useful resource. I will have to do something about that._ )

The virus again launched several exploratory probes just as it had done earlier on, via Xander's sneezes, this time to try to figure out where the anomalies had come from – for all the good that would do now.

Cursing, Xander blew his nose and then lay down on his bed. As the male teen started to flip through a comic book, he heard the front doorbell ring downstairs. The young man ignored it, though, deciding not to get up; whoever the visitor was, they almost certainly wouldn't be here for him anyway.

But then Harris heard his mother scream, and his father start to yell before their voices were abruptly cut off. So he leapt up off the bed, and started to run downstairs.

When he got there, Xander saw a horrific sight. Both Tony and Jessica Harris were on the floor near the front door, blood pooling underneath their bodies. "Mom? Dad?"

Losing it completely, Xander then practically flew straight towards the black-clad men holding nightsticks – from one end of which wooden stakes were protruding. Standard-issue weaponry for the security guards at Wolfram & Hart.

Harris had no idea what he was actually doing, the white-hot fury had swallowed him whole and he was moving pretty much on autopilot; which explained how the youth actually managed to kill one of the commandos, despite the superior combat training they had.

That was when his typical Harris luck kicked in, though, and Xander noticed how a stab wound which had completely penetrated his right hand miraculously healed itself. The Wolfram & Hart SWAT team took advantage of the teenager's distraction, and swarmed in to attack again.

"You little shit, I'm gonna tear you a new asshole once the brass is done with you," Commander Burke snarled angrily.

* * *

**1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale**

**September 18th, 1998**

Buffy walked down the stairs for breakfast. She didn't have to get up this early in order to go to school, but it still felt good to get back into her daily routine as much as possible. "Morning, Mom."

"Good morning, dear. Want some waffles?"

"That would be perfection, Mom," Buffy smiled. ( _Hello, my life – how I've missed you!_ )

"Okay. Do you have any plans for today?" Joyce asked rather carefully, as she began to prepare her daughter's breakfast.

"No, not really. But don't worry, I'll find something to do. You should go to work at the gallery, right?" Buffy tried to be as upbeat as possible. "I'm sure all the bills around here aren't going to just pay themselves."

Joyce half-smiled at her daughter's attempt to act so grown-up. "You could always come with me, if you like? There's always lots of heavy lifting and carrying to be done, and with your, uh, Slayer strength..."

Buffy appreciated her mother's attempt to accept who and what she really was, even if it was perfectly obvious Joyce still wasn't on board with the whole Vampire Slayer thing. "I might drop by after lunchtime. Well, that's assuming that all the daytime soaps I plan to watch don't completely melt my brain," Buffy snorted slightly.

"Okay," Joyce said, and not long afterwards, the waffles were done. "Here you go."

"Delishosous," Buffy said with her mouth full, earning the expected rebuke from her mother. Still, once again it was a truly welcome return to normality for her, and Buffy almost sighed with pleasure as she gobbled up the food.

Once breakfast was over, Joyce headed towards the sink before Buffy said, "Leave it – I'll wash up the dishes after you go to work."

"Buffy, thank you – but um, I-I think I'll stay a little while, actually. Let's go sit down in the living room, maybe watch some TV?" Joyce asked rather pleadingly.

Her danger sense tingling, Buffy nodded and quickly switched on the TV set. A few moments later Joyce said, "Honey, do you mind if I ask some questions? Some things were said at the dinner party the other night, and I...well, of course, I heard Xander's side of things. But I was wondering, is it okay if you tell me yours as well?"

( _Here we go,_ ) Buffy thought uncomfortably. On some level, she'd known this was inevitable – but that didn't mean she had to like it. "You've got questions...then fire away, Mom."

Joyce's first question was something Buffy hadn't been expecting, though. "Who was this 'Kendra' person Xander mentioned, who died?"

Buffy looked surprised. "She was a Slayer, like me. Giles didn't tell you about her?"

Joyce instantly looked uncomfortable. "Mr. Giles and I – well, that's a bit complicated, sweetie."

"Complicated? Giles is my Watcher, and has been ever since we arrived in Sunnydale. He told me that you know that now, Mom. So, how is it complicated?" Buffy asked in confusion.

"Well...you see, I, uh, I sort of blamed him for everything that had happened to you throughout the summer, and I don't think he's very open to the idea of sharing information with me on general principles. I gathered from Willow and Xander that initially, Mr. Giles wasn't very happy with THEM finding out the big secret either?" Joyce asked her daughter.

"Yeah, you could say that," Buffy exhaled softly, recalling what her Watcher had been like during halfway through her sophomore year, when she'd arrived on the Hellmouth. "Okay, when the cops came around to the house accusing me of murder that night? That was because I'd found Kendra's body-"

At that moment, the 'breaking news story' theme was heard coming from the idiot box and the TV anchorman then said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just received word regarding three murders right here in Sunnydale, which took place at 17619 White Oak Drive last night..."

"What? That's Xander's house!" Buffy yelped, as the topic of Kendra was instantly shelved and both Summers women glued their eyes to the screen.

Initially, Buffy simply couldn't believe it. But as the reporter on the scene released the names of the three victims, disbelief turned into shock, horror and a sick feeling of revulsion.

Never mind that she had been pissed at the guy before now, if nothing else Xander had brought her back to life after she'd drowned at the end of sophomore year – and so her nature as the Slayer demanded that something be done about this.

Instinctively, Buffy did what she always did in these situations – she headed off to find her Watcher at the library.

* * *

**Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

Buffy ran through the main hall of the school, uncaring if she was forbidden to be here or not by Principal Snyder. Most likely, she would have unhesitatingly decked the man if she'd encountered him, anyway.

"Giles? GILES!" Miss Summers shouted as she burst through the double doors of the library. "Giles?"

"Over here, Buffy," the British man called out, beckoning the girl to join himself and Willow – who was currently trying to hack into the Sunnydale PD's database. Then Giles said, "Uh, I-I shouldn't need to point out that, that you're not actually allowed to be on school property yet-"

"You think I care about THAT right now?" Buffy tried not to yell but didn't succeed very well. "Willow, what have you learned so far?"

"Uh, nothing yet, Buff. I'm still trying to get into the police department's intranet," Miss Rosenberg replied absently, as her concentration was almost one hundred percent focused on her illegal activities.

"Giles, what have you heard?" Buffy then demanded of her Watcher.

"Only, um, what was on the news this morning, a-about the murders," Rupert exhaled, rubbing his eyes tiredly and suddenly looking at least a decade older. "Good Lord. I-I know we're living on a Hellmouth and all, but I never expected this sort of thing to happen-" He suddenly noticed that Willow had stopped typing. "Willow?"

"He's dead," Willow stammered, her lips trembling. "Xander's dead. He, he, he's really dead, isn't he?"

The tears started gushing down out of her eyes, as the true horror of the situation finally hit Miss Rosenberg like a ton of bricks. Giles handed her a box of tissues and Buffy hugged her best friend, her own salty tears flowing madly before Willow eventually pulled herself back together in order to resume her work.

"GILES!" Cordelia screamed as she crashed her way through the library doors, just as Buffy had done a short while ago.

Everyone stared at her in surprise – for once, the head cheerleader was not dressed in a designer outfit with matching shoes and perfectly coiffed hair. Instead, her hair was in a simple ponytail, and she was wearing a T-shirt, sneakers and jeans – hardly what would be expected from the dreaded prosecutor of the ugly and unfashionable, but then Miss Chase had been in a big hurry to get to school this morning.

"Cordelia? Uh, wh-what are you doing here?" Giles stuttered.

"Xander's been MURDERED, duh! So, have you figured out who did it yet?" Cordy demanded furiously, hiding her overwhelming pain and heartbreak the only way she knew how – even though the tear stains on her cheeks revealed a VERY telling story.

"Err, no," Giles stammered, rather overwhelmed by this female force of nature. "We, we just learned the news ourselves less than an hour ago-"

"So then why are you wasting time talking to me about it? Hurry up, find out who's responsible!" Cordelia ordered him, fighting back her tears. Then Miss Chase appeared to notice Buffy. "Aren't you still banned from being on campus?"

"Your point being?" the Slayer demanded impatiently.

"Well, you might want to lay low behind the counter or something, because I saw Principal Snyder walking around a few seconds ago. Oh, and he had a smile on his face the size of the Grand Canyon, that stupid troll," Cordelia scowled angrily, knowing full well what had put the balding little man in such a good mood this morning.

"Yeah, and I bet I can guess why. God, Snyder totally needs me to kick his ass," Buffy growled, before she and the other girls winced at her choice of words – instantly reminded as they were of that disastrous dinner party barely two nights ago.

"I'm in!" Willow suddenly announced, wiping away the last few tears as the others quickly crowded around her. Staring at the screen Willow added, "Okay, this is all very preliminary...the murders took place less than twelve hours ago, so I bet a lot of stuff hasn't been entered into the database yet-"

"Willow, for God's sake! Stop telling us what you don't know, and start telling us what you DO know!" Cordelia shouted, her eyes starting to get shiny all over again despite her efforts to prevent it.

"Uh...Xander and his parents – all three of 'em died from a stab wound to the heart. From the depths of the wounds, they were killed almost instantly," Willow said, quickly reading through the report. "The police didn't find the murder weapon at the scene of the crime, though. The house was like completely trashed as well."

"What else?" Buffy asked urgently, not knowing that Wolfram & Hart had ransacked the place in order to recover the missing 'inactive' portion of the virus.

"Uh..." Willow kept reading, and then her eyes went wide and she quickly shut down the computer, jumping to her feet and backing away from the group.

"Willow? What is it?" Giles asked in confusion.

"Um, the Sunnydale PD, they, they found something kinda unusual..." Willow stammered, staring directly at Buffy.

Cordelia straightaway noticed what the redhead was doing – she was built to notice these things, after all. "What? Come on, Willow, share with the rest of the class!"

"The, the CSI team found fragments of wood. Wood shavings, on the floor and on Xander's body. They, they think he put up a struggle before he..."

"So what are you saying? That Xander was stabbed through the heart by someone with a wooden-" Cordelia's eyes then bulged out, as she and Giles turned to stare at Buffy as well.

The Slayer instantly managed to get it, what with all the looks being sent her way.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute – you guys don't think that I did it, do you?" Buffy demanded in sheer disbelief, backing away from her friends.

To Cordelia's mind, after what had happened two nights ago – Buffy was definitely someone with the means, the motive and possibly even the opportunity to have done it. So Miss Chase demanded bluntly, "Have you got an alibi for the time of the murders, or not?"

"An ALIBI?" Buffy looked incredulous at what she was hearing. "You really DO think I did it!"

Even though she couldn't help remembering their recent conversation in the Espresso Pump, and how bad that made things look for Miss Summers right now, Willow thought to herself, ( _Buffy...you couldn't have done it, right? No, you save people, not kill them!_ )

"No, Buffy, I mean – you're the Slayer, you-you would never do something like that," Willow said rather desperately.

"Sure, just like she wouldn't lose her temper and toss that robot guy down the stairs last year, after he started fighting with her in her bedroom," Cordelia said suspiciously, her sense of judgment was unfortunately not at its best right now – due to the drastic emotional upheaval all three girls were currently undergoing.

"Cordy!" Willow yelped, as Buffy glared daggers at Miss Chase.

"If you're going to accuse me of something, Cordelia, then why don't you just come straight out and say it?" the Summers girl said in a freezing cold tone of voice.

"Fine. Did you murder Xander because he lied to you about Angel's curse, or not?" Miss Chase demanded bluntly.

"CORDELIA!" Willow yelped again.

"All right, that's ENOUGH!" Giles shouted, as the female trio turned to face him. "Willow, Cordelia, please leave – right now. Buffy and I have some things to discuss in private."

After the pair of females had left the library, Willow looking back uncertainly the entire time, Buffy stared pleadingly at her Watcher. "Giles, c'mon, you don't really believe that I-?"

"No, of course not. H-however upset you were with Xander the other night, you would never have resorted to murder – n-not to mention the murder of his parents. Heaven knows, Buffy, I-I've taught you better than that," Giles clucked impatiently, much to her relief. "I rather suspect that someone is trying to frame you, actually. Therefore, i-if the police should ask, you'll tell them that you spent the night at home with your mother-"

"But Giles, that's not true. I went out patrolling last night, in between nine and one o'clock this morning," Buffy interrupted him worriedly.

"Did anyone see you? Better yet, d-did anyone see you anywhere near Xander's neighbourhood?" Giles asked.

"No, because I didn't go there last night. I patrolled down near the docks and through the industrial district, not far from that warehouse we were all captured in last Halloween," Buffy told him.

"Then there shouldn't be a problem," Giles cogitated. "We shall say that you and I spent the evening together searching for an expensive trinket of mine, a, uh, a gold watch that I lost – a-a-and afterwards, I dropped you off at home and had a very late cup of tea with your mother. Right, now you'd best be off and tell Joyce the situation – and Buffy, m-make sure you go out through the sewer entrance. As I said before, strictly speaking, y-you shouldn't be here right now," Giles mildly admonished his charge.

Buffy made a face at the thought of her shoes getting sewer muck all over them, but she didn't argue as she headed for the rear of the library. As the Slayer left, Giles frowned – wondering why the Harris family had been murdered in such a way as to point suspicion in Buffy's direction.

He didn't know how the people at Wolfram & Hart couldn't pass up any opportunity to distract and demoralize one of their adversaries, after all.

* * *

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**September 22nd, 1998**

The sun was beginning to sink downwards in the late afternoon sky, as the Harris family funeral took place and the three coffins were lowered into the earth.

Oddly, lots of people were in attendance, especially Xander's classmates at school. It seemed that despite how low on the totem pole he'd fallen after the break with Cordelia, there were still plenty of high school kids who had decided to show up here today to pay their last respects.

Just like Willow and Cordelia, Buffy was a complete mess right now, thanks to everything that had happened. As has been said, upset and angry over the Big Lie though she had been, Buffy had never wanted this sort of fate to befall Xander or his parents – and the knowledge that someone had killed three people just to rattle her, truly had sucker-punched the Chosen One.

The police had interviewed her, of course, just as they had interviewed Willow and Cordelia and a number of other people. With her documented history of violence, the Sunnydale PD had spent more time grilling Buffy than her two classmates, but Detective Stein didn't have a leg to stand on and he'd known it. The cops had eventually just departed from the Summers house, saying they'd be in touch.

But so far, there had been nothing more from them. So Buffy just watched, feeling empty and gutted as the priest said the usual meaningless words and Mayor Wilkins briefly gave a small speech about how this sort of atrocity would not be tolerated in his town, and that the police would soon find the killer.

( _Yeah, right,_ ) Buffy thought to herself, unluckily missing out on the momentary look of displeasure on the Mayor's face with the regard to the mess Holland Manners had landed him in. ( _Two years I've been here, and Sunnydale's official population has gone down by over two thousand people – nearly three. How is THIS going to change anything? I bet you that within a month, practically no one will remember Xander and his folks ever existed! _)

At long last the funeral was over, and most of the attendees left quickly out of fear that they'd be caught in a cemetery after sunset. Buffy and her mother didn't leave, though; the blonde Slayer joined Willow and Oz alongside Xander's grave, and tried to comfort the grieving redhead.

( _This must be so hard on her,_ ) Buffy thought sadly, watching as the tears once again splashed down the redhead's cheeks. ( _Willow and Xander knew each other ever since the day they were born, almost. Now she has to live in a world where he's dead and gone? It's a good thing she's got Oz to take care of her, is all I can say._ )

At that moment, Buffy's attention was captured by Cordelia showing up on the other side of the grave, the brunette girl also having tear tracks on her face. The two female teens just briefly stared at each other with mutual dislike, as that incident in the library had destroyed any semblance of friendship between them – even though Cordelia didn't suspect that Buffy was a murderer anymore, thanks to a truth spell Willow had recently performed to provide proof of her friend's innocence.

Joyce stood alone, watching the interaction between her daughter and the others. ( _Oh, Lord knows I think we'd both have been better off if Buffy and I had never come to this town in the first place..._ )

"It's terrible what's happened. Especially with regard to the boy, Alexander," Joyce heard someone say, as she turned and saw Cordelia's parents arrive next to her. "Did you know him well?" Mr. Chase finished up.

"Yes, he came over to my house quite often. I'm Joyce Summers," the blonde woman held out her hand.

"I know, I'm David Chase and this is my wife Julia. We've visited your art gallery, and Cordelia's mentioned going to your house for dinner recently." The dark-haired man briefly shook Joyce's hand, as did his wife.

"This must be very difficult for your daughter, I know," Joyce glanced in Cordelia's direction. "As far as I could tell, she and Xander used to be very close."

Mrs. Chase told Joyce, "Cordelia won't admit it to us, but David and I think that she really did love that boy."

"And then something like that happened. This town is cursed, I tell you," Mr. Chase shook his head in distaste, once again glancing up at the sky. "Well, I'm afraid we have to get going. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Summers, even though I wish it could have been under better circumstances." So saying, the Chase elders collected their daughter and left, just like Ira and Sheila Rosenberg did with Willow.

Joyce then approached Buffy. "Sweetheart, shouldn't we-"

"You go home, Mom. I'll be there soon. Oz, you should go home too – it'll be dark in a little while," Buffy commanded Willow's boyfriend, before turning to beckon Giles over to her. "You stay; we need to talk."

With a short nod, Oz said his farewells and left in his van. Joyce did likewise, even though it was obvious she didn't like leaving her daughter alone with the Englishman. Still, the Summers mom dutifully got into her Jeep and drove off.

Giles looked around the cemetery, and released a weary sigh. "As I told you that day we visited Jenny's grave over there, Buffy, I-I-I've attended too many funerals in my life. It's the first occasion, however, that I've ever been to any such as this."

"We've got to find out who did this, Giles. Because the cops are just going to sweep everything under the carpet, exactly like they did with Kendra's murder," Buffy stated forcefully.

"Yes, most likely." Giles took off his glasses and started polishing them. "I take it, y-you learned nothing new from that snitch you visited last night?"

"Not a thing," Buffy shook her head. "Willy swears that if it had been a demon that did it, he'd have heard about it. And I guess it's like that weasel said – if this was Hellmouth-related, then the killer would have been bragging about what he'd done in Willy's bar right from the start."

"Then I guess we'll just have to readjust our focus, so to speak, a-and keep looking," Giles said musingly.

"It actually makes it worse, though. Thinking that someone with a soul did this," Buffy shook her head as she and her Watcher began to walk off towards his car. "Kinda makes me wonder why I bother trying to save everyone from the vampires around here."

"Because it's the right thing to do. And it's what Xander would have wanted you to do," Giles said comfortingly to his Slayer, placing a paternalistic hand on her shoulder as he guided the blonde girl back to his Citroen.

To Be Continued...


	5. Unwelcome Visitors

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Howdy, everyone, and wow – ask, and ye shall receive! I got quite a bit of feedback from the last chapter, including one email whose author demanded to know why I'd killed off Xander. The thing is, though – did we ever actually see his dead body? And even if we had, this is the Buffy-verse we're talking about – death isn't necessarily the end! Still, that sort of feedback is encouraging in one sense, in that I'm not getting too predictable in my plot bunnies. Well, I HOPE I'm still surprising people every now and then, anyway! Am I? Great, now I definitely need more people to review and send feedback, so please hit that hyperlink once you get to the end of the chapter...

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**Part Five: Unwelcome Visitors**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**October 26th, 1998**

The past month had been a very busy one, and just as Buffy had suspected at the time, almost everyone in Sunnydale had forgotten about the Harris murders by now. Only the people who knew about the real world containing vampires and demons hadn't succumbed to that particular Sunnydale syndrome.

That was part of the reason why, a few days after the funeral, Cordelia had entered the library during one of Buffy's training sessions – the Slayer had been readmitted as a student, by that point – and Miss Chase had become very upset at the lack of progress on learning 'whodunit'. Cordy had thought that it had to be some demon or another, because who else would have planted wood at the scene of the crime? In her view, it had to have been someone or something who'd known of Xander's connection to the Vampire Slayer.

Unfortunately, Buffy had chosen that moment to tell Miss Chase that amateur hour was officially over, which had resulted in another nasty argument between the two girls as Giles had wisely retreated to minimum safe distance.

Willow and Oz had also tried to stay out of it as best they could, when the new Slayer named Faith Lehane – Kendra's replacement – had shown up in town. She was being chased by two vampires known as Kakistos and Mr. Trick. Upon being confronted by the two Slayers, Trick had survived; Kakistos hadn't. So the black vampire had decided to set up shop here in Sunnydale on his own...

And also around that time, Angel had somehow been brought back from that hell dimension which Buffy had sent him when closing Acathla. Naked, feral and chained up by Buffy in his old mansion, Angel had nonetheless escaped and saved Buffy's life from the crazy student monster named Pete Clarner, whilst Werewolf Oz was causing his own brand of mayhem after escaping from the library book cage.

A short while later, Homecoming had involved the 'fun' known as Slayerfest '98; but Buffy and Faith had found those demons, vampires and human terrorists relatively easy to deal with, after Mr. Trick had been abducted by the cops and recruited to work for the Mayor. Cordelia had been crowned Homecoming Queen that night as well, mostly since Buffy had never been given any reason to run for the title herself – but the empty feeling of a hollow victory had refused to leave Miss Chase, after she had gone home alone, later that evening.

Finally, all the adults had briefly acted like teenage kids after everyone had started eating some cursed candy – before Buffy, her Watcher and her mom had saved a bunch of babies from a sewer monster named Lurconis. About the only other good thing to have come out of that fiasco was Joyce softening on her attitude towards Giles – after all, getting shagged twice on the hood of a police car by the roguishly handsome British man made Buffy's mother feel more embarrassed than angry these days, whenever she was in Rupert's presence.

Just yesterday, though, the British woman called Gwendolyn Post had arrived in town, claiming to be Faith's new Watcher. She had also mentioned that the demon called Lagos was likely to show up, looking for something called the Glove of Myhneghon. A deadly artefact that was hidden within one of Sunnydale's twelve cemeteries, even if Mrs. Post didn't know which one.

( _What the hell am I really doing here?_ ) Cordelia asked herself, even as she looked around Restfield Cemetery for Faith – who was hopefully somewhere close by. ( _I should never have told Giles I knew where the Von Hauptman family crypt was, I...OH MY GOD! _)

Cordelia froze at the sight of Angel exiting the crypt in question, carrying something wrapped in a bunch of rags. ( _I thought he was supposed to be roasting his nuts in Hell or something! What's going on here?_ )

The only reason Cordelia didn't run straight back to the library immediately was the memory of Buffy saying, during that zombie-infested dinner party, that the soul curse had worked five months ago. So, slowly following Angel and making sure to keep a safe distance from him, Miss Chase made her way to the mansion on Crawford Street.

However, when Cordelia tiptoed into the atrium and saw Buffy and Angel kissing through a window, the brunette girl totally lost it.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?"

Buffy and Angel broke apart at the sound of her voice, and then the ensouled vampire took a step back as Cordelia marched in through the atrium door, stake in one hand and thrusting her cross out with the other. Miss Chase said with a penetrating glare, "That's right, you back off – Dead Boy!"

"Cordelia, what are you doing here?" Buffy demanded, annoyed at hearing Xander's old nickname for Angel. "Hey, put that down-"

"You've got ten seconds to convince me that this isn't Angelus, or I'll tell everyone that he attacked me just now. And we both know that you won't be able to prevent Faith from dusting his ass sooner or later," Cordelia said to Buffy, not lowering the cross in the slightest.

"Cordelia? If I was Angelus, you'd be dead right now," Angel spoke up, his eyes still focused on the holy icon repelling him away.

"Yeah, listen, I know that what you just saw looks kinda bad – but, but Angel and I aren't – we haven't..." Buffy trailed off, wondering how to best put this. "We just...lost control of ourselves for a second, that's all."

Cordelia's eyes suddenly widened. She asked Buffy, "How long has he been back? That is, if you ever even sent him to Hell at all? Buffy, if Angel was the one who killed Xander and his family last month, I swear to God that I'm gonna-"

"NO!" Buffy interrupted, looking aghast. "It, it wasn't him! It couldn't have been!"

"Really? 'Cause you're not exactly inspiring me to believe you," Cordelia advanced slowly, death clearly visible in her eyes.

"I didn't kill Xander or his parents," Angel said, as he retreated slightly. "Not only would no one have ever invited me inside the house due to the animalistic state I was in, as far as I can remember...I-I've only been back around three weeks or so. And according to Buffy, those people were already dead and buried by that point. I – for whatever it's worth, Cordelia, I'm sorry for your loss," Angel said to her as honestly as he could.

"Oh, I'm sure. Because we were such good friends before you went completely psycho, right? You didn't even notice when I was trying to flirt with you, dumbass – well, that was before I found out what you really are!" Cordelia said scathingly. She then pointed to the bundle of rags. "I saw you carrying that out of the Von Hauptman crypt. Is that the Glove of Money-gone thing, or whatever?"

"Yeah. Hey, how did you know about that?" Buffy wanted to know.

"Giles figured out where it was earlier on tonight, while I was talking to Willow and Oz. I volunteered to go find Faith before that Lagos character got its claws on it – and imagine my surprise when HE shows up," Cordelia said scornfully, gesturing towards Angel. "All right, Buffy, you grab the demon fashion accessory. As for you, vampire, I'm taking you to face Giles. After the way you tortured him, I'm sure he'll have quite a few ideas on what to do to you in return!"

"That wasn't Angel!" Buffy snapped angrily, even as she picked up the Glove.

"Who said I was talking about him? Newsflash – I was talking to Angelus, you bottle-blonde freakazoid! You think I've forgotten how he's still in there, just beneath the surface?" Cordelia said contemptuously as both Buffy and Angel looked surprised. "Now both of you, get your asses in gear! We're going to the library, right now."

* * *

**Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale**

**Less than half an hour later**

Giles was packing up for the night, when Gwendolyn Post came strolling into his private office. "Off home, are we Mr. Giles?" she asked him.

"Yes, there are some volumes I'd like to consult which I keep there. Hopefully, there will be a, a drawing of the Glove somewhere in one of them," Giles said absently, even as he straightened his desk.

"Would you like some assistance in your search?" Mrs. Post offered condescendingly.

"Of course," Giles smiled thinly. He couldn't stand the woman and her snooty ways, but he'd been forced to work with worse Council colleagues over the years. "The sooner we find the Glove of Myhneghon, a-as well as some way to destroy it, the better."

"Hmm, yes. Hopefully the Slayers will soon take care of Lagos as well. I'm sure Faith will acquit herself admirably in battle now that I've taken over her training, but I'm still quite concerned about Buffy and her, ah, rather unorthodox ways," Gwendolyn said, straightening the cardigan draped around her shoulders.

Giles had had enough of the innuendo from this female mandarin. "Mrs. Post, I can assure you that Buffy is both dedicated and industrious, and that I am in complete control of my Slayer-"

Just then, the library doors slammed open and Cordelia, Buffy and Angel walked in. "Giles?" Miss Chase called out, attracting the attention of both British types. "We kinda have a situation here!"

Giles and Mrs. Post immediately left the private office, and Rupert's eyes went wide at the sight of Angel. ( _What..._ )

A hundred memories of that hated face leering at him as he was tortured for hours, instantly flashed through Rupert's mind. God help him, but Giles wanted to grab the stake Cordelia was holding and plunge it straight into the vampire's heart. "You..."

"Giles? It's okay, this is Angel, not Angelus – he, he's got his soul back and everything," Buffy stammered nervously as she placed the rags containing the Glove on the main table.

"This is the vampire who tried to destroy the world a few months ago? Why the devil isn't he dust yet?" Gwendolyn Post's voice was full of incredulity as she glared at Angel.

"Boy, isn't that the question of the hour," Cordelia muttered to herself.

Buffy knew she had to talk fast before the British woman did something drastic, like summon Faith for a quick staking. "Angel is, is better now, h-he's one of the good guys again. He even helped me find the Glove of Minnie-whatsit over there," Buffy gestured to the object on the table.

Gwendolyn immediately went over to unwrap the Glove as Cordelia said, "And that's supposed to make everything hunky-dory? Damn it, Buffy – I saw you sucking face with your demon lover again, whatever excuse you wanna try to sell us about that. Have you totally blocked out the fact that the last time Angel went crazy, he barely laid a hand on you? He was WAY more interested in killing all your friends!"

"She's right, I was," Angel mumbled, head bowed and thus missing Buffy's look of exasperation.

"How did you return from...Mrs. Post? What are you DOING?" Giles suddenly noticed that Gwendolyn was actually putting on the Glove.

Once her right arm was all the way inside, the fake Watcher made a fist with her clawed fingers. Instantly the metal prongs surrounding the Glove's opening began closing, puncturing Gwendolyn's forearm one at a time until all ten became permanently embedded in her flesh. "Finally..."

Mrs. Post held up her gloved arm and smiled maniacally at the sight, seemingly oblivious to the pain. She extended her arm above her, up toward the skylight as she recited the Gaelic spell to invoke the power of the Glove. "Taou huogan maqachte milegaing!"

Angel knew the language, and thus realized what was coming. "Everybody, look out!"

The vampire's warning was only just in time, as a blindingly bright bolt of lightning smashed through the skylight and struck the Glove. Jagged shards of shattered glass fell everywhere, but Gwendolyn ignored them as she rejoiced in her new-found power. She then turned to face the others, and extended the Glove toward them.

"Tauo freim!" Mrs. Post shouted, and a bolt of lightning lashed out of the Glove to strike the door to the private office as the white hats scattered around the library.

"What the hell is going on – why's she trying to kill us?" Cordelia screamed, no longer concerned about Angel as a great howling wind seemed to spring up out of nowhere within Slayage Central.

"I don't know!" Buffy screamed back. "Giles! How do we stop her?"

"Cut off the-" was all that Giles managed to say, before Angel dived on top of him in order to save Rupert from a well-aimed lightning bolt.

"Distract her, quick!" Buffy called out to Cordelia, as she headed for the book cage.

"Hey! You, British lady with the totally unfashionable hair, I'm standing right here!" Cordelia shouted at the foot of the stairs, before she dove to the side and the next lightning bolt just barely missed her.

"Tauo freim!" Mrs. Post shouted again, before yet another lightning bolt was hurled at the very nimble cheerleader.

Luckily, by this point Buffy had reached the weapons supply depot. And after grabbing a hunga munga – an axe-like African tribal weapon that could be used for throwing – with her marvellously synchronized power of hands, wrists, arms and shoulders, Miss Summers let fly at her target.

The curved blade sliced cleanly through Gwendolyn's upper arm, severing it and the Glove from Mrs. Post's body. With nothing to control it now, the power of the Glove became erratic, and small bolts and sparks leaped up from it in random directions.

Another bolt of lightning blasted down through the skylight, and not having a specified target this time, it hit Gwendolyn in the chest with a few small tendrils of electricity going in through her eyes. The woman thus screamed at the top of her lungs, as her entire body began to writhe in pain.

Everyone watched in shock as Mrs. Post kept screaming and the lightning bolts kept coming. A moment later, with one final lightning strike, both the Glove and the one-armed ex-Watcher simply vanished in a bright flash of light.

( _What is happening?_ ) the now-sentient virus within Cordelia asked itself, having colonized her body after the oral pleasure she'd given Xander last month and getting 'activated' by the huge release of mystical energy just now.

Exactly like the virus within Xander had become self-aware, on the night of the dead man's dinner party.

( _Who am I? Where am I?_ ) the virus thought in confusion, as history began to repeat itself.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart facility, Los Angeles**

**The same time**

In the basement of a building that was supposedly a travel agency, Xander Harris was trapped in a Wolfram & Hart laboratory – just as he had been ever since the night he'd been kidnapped, and a dead ringer substituted in his place for the authorities to find.

Unconscious, the young man was floating in a huge-sized tank, even though it wasn't water he was breathing right now. Rather, he was breathing a hyper-oxygenated liquid that had been reverse-engineered from the fluid within the human womb during pregnancy. His body had quickly remembered what to do on an involuntary level, and thus there was no muscle atrophy or anything like that after his month-long incarceration.

Commander Burke was staring at Xander with a cold look on his face. After the retrieval operation, he had been placed in charge of security for this facility. It was not an assignment he was particularly enjoying, however, and Burke was looking forward to the day when he would be able to rip Xander to pieces after the scientific types were done with him.

Burke walked up to Knox, who was now the chief scientist of the project. The man in the white lab coat thought to himself, _( I don't get it. Why can't I isolate any live samples of virus from the host? I mean, arresting the cell deterioration after taking a biopsy sample is one thing, but..._ )

"Knox," Burke said impatiently, but the guy was so absorbed in his own thoughts he didn't even hear the commando.

( _Maybe I should apply an electrical current to the man's body during the procedure, either with or without an adrenaline boost?_ ) Knox asked himself, before he was brought out of dreamland by a hard whack on his ear. "Ow! Hey, what-?"

"I'm talking to you, egghead," Burke growled. "Are you listening to me now?"

"Yeah, yeah I am. What do you want?" Knox asked, rubbing his ear.

"A status update before I patrol the area outside the building," Burke told him. "Well?"

"We're still exactly where we were a month ago – nowhere," Knox complained, getting up off the chair. He gestured at Xander, "I don't get it; every single virus sample we've isolated from Harris is dead, lifeless – yet it's obviously still alive within him, 'cause there's no other explanation for the increased muscle mass we've discovered lately. That leftover virus we found in the bottle Spanky made for Lopez, that hasn't given us bupkus either!"

"Piece of advice – start coming up with results, or else you just might find yourself getting downsized. Literally," Burke said menacingly. "This is Wolfram & Hart. The Senior Partners don't tolerate failure!"

As the security chief left to go on his patrol, Knox contemplated his words very carefully. ( _Hmm, maybe I should talk to Mr. Manners about bringing someone else in to consult on the project, some sort of expert, and then finagle a transfer back to my old job..._ )

* * *

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**November 26th, 1998**

Mayor Richard Wilkins was in a much more chipper mood nowadays, ever since he'd made his speech at the Harris family funeral a couple of months ago.

He still held some hard feelings towards Holland Manners and the law firm employing him for that frightful cock-up – Richard felt he should have insisted that they be a little more discreet about the whole thing. But honestly, was it really his fault for assuming that Holland actually knew how to conduct a covert operation?

Wilkins didn't think so, but like the old saying went – when you assume things, it always makes an ass out of you and me.

Still, right now the Mayor had his mind on more important matters – like practicing his putting in the company of his assistant, the Deputy Mayor Allan Finch. Wilkins tapped the ball with the golf putter, but it just missed its target receptacle.

"Oh, look at that! Every time, cuts to the left," Wilkins complained as he got down on his hands and knees to check the lie of the floor. "See, and it's not the carpet. It's me." After he retrieved his golf ball, Richard added, "I swear, I'd sell my own soul for a decent short game. Of course, it's a little late for that..."

Wilkins chuckled and said to Allan, "I don't suppose I could offer up your soul instead? It'd really help me out on the green." Off the Deputy Mayor's shocked look, Richard chuckled again and said, "I'm just funning with you, Allan, gosh – you turn that frown upside down! Now, you were saying that we currently have a problem here in Sunnydale?"

Finch nodded. "The vampire named Spike, sir. He's been spotted back within the city limits."

( _Ah yes, William the Bloody. Grandchilde of that Angel fellow._ ) Wilkins started concentrating on his putting again. The Mayor's next shot was on target, but this time came up too short. He let out a frustrated sigh and went to retrieve his ball. "Go on."

"There was a, uh, an incident in broad daylight, at Uncle Bob's Magic Cabinet. The shopkeeper was found murdered, with twin holes in her neck. The police had a rather difficult time covering it up, I'm afraid."

Mayor Wilkins laughed, "Well, now, y'know, that Spike character did get up to all sorts of shenanigans last year, him and his sire – what was her name...Drusilla? Yes, that's right. We had a world of fun trying to guess what they'd do next, didn't we?"

"Yes, sir, I remember," Allan nodded like a good minion.

"But I guess we're past all that now. This year is too important to let a loose cannon rock the boat," Wilkins decided as he retrieved his golf ball and dropped it onto the floor once more.

Allan nodded. "Should I have Mr. Trick send a...committee to deal with him?"

Wilkins didn't seem to be listening. "Loose cannon. Rock the boat. Is that a mixed metaphor?"

Finch said confusedly, "Uh..."

Richard went on musingly, "Boats did have cannons, as I recall. And a loose one would cause it to rock. Oh, honestly, I don't know where my mind goes these days!" He chuckled again, "Yes, why don't you take care of that Spike problem, Allan. A committee, like you said."

"As good as done, sir," Allan said as he quickly left the office.

"Excellent. Fore!" Wilkins called out as he took another swing, and this time the golf ball hit the catcher receptacle directly on target. The Mayor spread his arms, elated. "Well, isn't that nice!"

From his point of view, it certainly was. But not so much from Spike's – because, since he'd never encountered Willow Rosenberg at the magic shop earlier on today, the British vampire was all alone when Finch's undead welcoming committee finally found him.

And not even William the Bloody would have been able to stand alone against so many attacking vampires, without eventually getting dusted – so Spike was indeed very fortunate that Drusilla showed up at the last second, to rescue him...

* * *

**Sunnydale High School Library, Sunnydale**

**November 27th, 1998**

Rupert Giles had left for a retreat up in Breaker's Woods, and Buffy was talking with Angel after Joyce had asked her daughter what was going on with regard to him – the woman had finally found out that her daughter's vampiric boyfriend was back, and she wasn't exactly happy about that.

But Faith knew nothing about such family matters – she was too busy training alone in the library.

( _I guess things ain't been too bad ever since the evil Watcher got toasted,_ ) Faith thought to herself as the brunette practiced her moves on the training dummy. ( _I kinda prefer G, anyway. Too bad about B and Fang, but if she doesn't wanna give guys with a pulse a ride, that's no skin off my nose. Red and Wolfie, well, hell – that's none of my beeswax, either. And as for Queenie..._ )

Faith grinned to herself. Cordelia didn't hang out much with the Slayage crowd these days, but in Miss Lehane's opinion, it was quality versus quantity which counted where that girl was concerned. Faith had learned for herself how Queen C ruled the school with an iron hand, despite the lack of a boyfriend. ( _She just needs to loosen up a little, I'm thinking, find some stud to give it to her but gooood!_ )

Just then, the dark-haired Slayer saw Cordelia enter the library. "Hey," Faith said merrily as she stopped punching and kicking the practice dummy. "How's tricks?"

Cordelia didn't look like she was in the mood for pleasantries. "Where's Giles?"

"Watcher-man decided to bug out for the weekend. He'll be back on Monday," Faith shrugged. "You looking for the latest 411 on what's the sitch concerning your former beefcake?"

Cordelia glared at her for a moment, since she hated it whenever Faith referred to Xander that way. Then she calmed down and said, "No, but what the hell – maybe it'd be better if I talked to you about this, instead of him."

Faith instantly lost the smirk. "What do ya mean?"

Cordelia came closer towards her. "You know that I'm just an ordinary human, right? I mean Slayers, witch, werewolf, vampire and the whole Watcher-y knowledge deal Giles has got going – none of that is me. It's kinda like I'm the club mascot to you people, someone to remind you just how different you are to all the normals around here."

"Yeah. So what?" Faith asked.

"Well, if I'm so goddamn normal – then you wanna explain to me how I can do THIS?" Cordelia looked briefly enraged as she wound up and hit the practice dummy with her fist...

...and knocked its head clean off, up into the stacks within the next level of the library.

It was all due to the virus, of course; it had made Cordy slightly stronger, much faster, far more flexible, and capable of extreme tissue regeneration. This complemented nicely both her athletic cheerleader prowess, and her ability to cope with constantly being kidnapped by vampires, demons, zombie football players or even demon-worshipping frat boys.

"Huh," Faith rubbed her nose, looking at Cordelia with undisguised interest. "Sorry, Queenie, I'm Josephine Clueless here. But hey, you wanna spar a little? I'm suddenly wanting to see just how strong you are, compared to someone like me."

If Xander had been there a bit later on, no doubt the sight of two incredibly hot girls getting all sweaty wrestling together would have made his groin go 'yippee!' for quite a while.

To Be Continued...


	6. Conversations With Live People

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello all, thanks for all the latest reviews and feedback! They truly warm the cockles of my heart. After reading the last chapter, someone suggested Xander destroying the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart...hmm, tempting, I'll have to admit. Oh, and Memory King, good guess about Spike and Dru. And before I forget, everyone, please keep reading and reviewing the story! Now here comes the fun part...

* * *

**Part Six: Conversations With Live People**

**Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale**

**January 20th, 1999**

Cordelia Chase headed towards the library, wondering what on earth the Hellmouth was going to throw at her this week.

The Christmas holiday season had almost seen Angel take a walk into the sunlight, thanks to the actions of something called the First Evil. Cordelia hadn't been present to witness that, but later on, the PDAs between Buffy and Angel had made her greatly fear the return of Angelus. Still, that had been practically nothing compared to the Gingerbread demon that had later shown up in Sunnydale.

Cordelia had found that it had taken everything she had to fight her way through that mob of people aiming to burn Buffy, Willow and the witch named Amy Madison at the stake. With Faith at her side, Miss Chase had ducked and weaved out of trouble as she'd punched and kicked her way to the tied-up female teenagers, while Giles and Oz had done that spell to release everyone from the demon's thrall.

Luckily, everything had turned out all right – the Gingerbread demon had been killed before it could slay any of the white hats, and Joyce had eventually recovered from attempting to murder her own daughter whilst under the demon's influence.

As Cordy approached the double doors, she heard shouts coming from within the library. Starting to run, Miss Chase soon happened upon a rather bizarre scene: Faith was trying to strangle Giles, while Buffy was trying to stop her and Joyce was pleading for the brunette Slayer to cease and desist from what she was doing.

"What the hell is going on here?" Cordelia demanded in sheer incredulity.

Buffy used the moment of distraction to tear Faith away from Giles. Glaring at the blonde for a moment, Miss Lehane said to Cordy, "What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on – this ASSHOLE stuck a needle in B and poisoned her, in order to feed her to some crazy cannibal bloodsucker!"

Faith then glared at Giles, "I swear, if you ever try doing something like that to me? I'll kill you the moment I feel like I'm starting to lose my powers. Do you understand me, you fucking waste of space?"

"Faith, please, that's enough! You haven't even heard the entire story yet. There's no need to overreact like this," Joyce asked pleadingly.

"This guy helped to almost kill your daughter, and you're DEFENDING him?" Faith looked like she couldn't believe her ears.

"Okay, someone be kind and rewind. Because I've obviously come in right in the middle of this story, and I'm totally lost here," Cordelia admitted, staring at the others.

Giles coughed, his throat bearing the marks of what Faith had just done to him. "Faith's right; I-I simply can't excuse myself, r-regarding what I've done. The Cruciamentum is, is something I should have refused to take part in..."

"Cruciamentum?" Cordelia asked.

"This sick and twisted 'test' the Council does, whenever a Slayer officially gets old enough to be able think for herself," Buffy said angrily, for the insane vampire named Kralik had viciously beaten her up as well as almost killed Joyce. "According to that guy Travers, it's some kinda so-called tradition-"

"One that Rupert had take part in, or else someone else would have done the job in his place," Joyce interrupted. "As it is, when he refused to just stand around and do nothing while Buffy tried to rescue me from that vampire, his superiors fired him."

Faith's eyes went wide as she stared at Giles. "No shit? You're officially not my Watcher anymore?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Giles isn't going anywhere, he's still the librarian around here," Buffy told her.

"Mrs. Summers, when did you stop calling him 'Mr. Giles' and start calling him 'Rupert'?" Cordelia asked Joyce suspiciously, her instincts were telling her that something was up between those two.

"Err..." Joyce stammered, deliberately avoiding looking at Cordelia.

"Ever since that band candy thing a few months ago, whatever," Buffy said impatiently, before focusing back on her mystical sibling. "Look, Faith, when I was fighting Kralik in that basement, Giles showed up outta nowhere and helped save my mom's life – which pretty much earns him a 'get out of jail free' card, in my book. I'm not saying let's pretend the whole thing never happened, 'cause believe me – this is gonna put a crimp in the trust for quite a while. But please – don't kill him or anything 'cause of this, okay?"

"Please, Faith," Joyce chimed in as well. "As a favour to me, if nothing else."

"Fine," Faith promised, even though she looked extremely sullen and unhappy doing so.

"All right. Now, why don't you come home with me and Buffy for dinner? As I said at Christmas, you're always welcome at my house," Joyce said with a small smile.

"I'm not exactly hungry, at least not right now," Faith replied, still looking very resentful.

"Oh, please, with your Slayer metabolism? Anybody who's actually retarded enough to believe that, raise your hand," Cordelia said derisively, as everyone glanced at her. "Faith, don't be an idiot – just for once, go eat some food that's actually healthy for you!"

"Whatever," Faith shrugged, and let Joyce and Buffy lead her away.

When Cordelia and Giles were alone together, the fashion queen stared at the librarian. "Well, you really screwed up from the sounds of things. I'm just glad Xander never lived to see this – 'cause he woulda been SO disappointed in you, Giles."

"I'm a complete failure, aren't I?" Giles muttered, rubbing his throat and planning to get some ice for it soon. "I failed Buffy, and I, I've failed HIM as well. Good God, the boy's been dead in his grave for the past four months, a-a-and we still haven't gotten anywhere learning who killed him-"

"Hey, you're not a failure. A screw-up, sure," Cordelia cut him off, not wanting to talk about her lost love anymore. "But it sounds like you did the right thing in the end, which for me pretty much equals not being part of the loser squad. So, getting back to why the hell I ever showed up here today – have you found anything new where I'm concerned?"

"No," Giles exhaled. "I'm still quite flummoxed about you, as a matter of fact. Your flexibility and speed are almost superhuman, a-and your, your combat skills are coming along in leaps and bounds-"

"Well, that part's not so unexpected. I mean three years of varsity cheer squad, I only ever had to be shown a move once," Cordy said smugly.

"Yes, but Cordelia, h-handling a lethal weapon is a little different from shaking a pom-pom," Giles pointed out. "It's strange – I mean there's also your healing ability, which i-is on par with a Slayer's...and you haven't even had a cough or a sneeze all winter, have you?"

"None," Cordelia nodded. She didn't know that her virus had launched some exploratory probes via her sneezes back then, just like Xander's virus had done the night Wolfram & Hart had grabbed him, but upon receiving no signal from the probes afterwards – the artificial intelligence had decided the outside universe was something that was of utterly no interest to it.

Cordelia then went on, "But hey, I'm not complaining. Remember how around this time last year, over half the school was out with that flu bug? If this whole Slayer-lite deal means that I'm safe from that sort of gross ickiness, then like, so much the better!"

( _Oh, if only the girl could also learn how to stop abusing the Queen's English,_ ) Giles thought to himself wearily as he wandered off to find that ice for his aching neck.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart facility, Los Angeles**

**March 3rd, 1999**

The days and weeks had passed and, whilst far away in Sunnydale Werewolf Oz was going nuts in his prison and the Scooby Gang was battling the Hellmouth demon in the library, here in the City of Angels – a momentous decision had been reached with regard to Wolfram & Hart's virus project.

"You're pulling the plug tonight? Right now? WHY?" Knox's replacement, the man known as Dr. Sparrow, said to Holland Manners in surprise.

"You actually have to ask?" Burke muttered. He was sick and tired of this assignment, and just wanted to finally kill Xander and get out of here.

"I've already submitted the paperwork, and this isn't the time or place for such comments, Commander Burke," Holland's tone was mild but his gaze was lethally dangerous. "The fact is that this project has gone nowhere over the past six months, and the lack of progress doesn't look good on the quarterly reports. According to the Senior Partners it's time to cut our losses, basically. Officially, Alexander Harris has already been disposed of – but if it'll make you feel better, Dr. Sparrow, I'm willing to hear your last status report before I shut down this facility."

"Mr. Manners, I'm over 99.9 percent sure that the virus is now sentient," the doctor said pleadingly. "If you'll just give me a little more time-"

"What makes you believe that?" Burke demanded, interrupting his plea.

"Well, there are now no scars or blemishes or imperfections visible anywhere on the host's body, despite the medical records from the Sunnydale General Hospital which say otherwise. Plus, muscle strength is far above the normal human maximum, at least as far as I can tell from the tests and simulations," Sparrow said urgently.

"That's your proof?" Burke demanded sceptically. "You're reaching, doctor. At least Knox was honest enough to admit he didn't know whether that over-evolved flu bug had been 'activated' or not!"

"Mr. Manners, may I say something?" the blonde psychic woman who had originally tracked down the virus to Sunnydale asked with a small smirk.

"What is it?" Holland turned to face her.

"If Dr. Sparrow's right and it is sentient, maybe we should try to communicate with the virus before getting rid of it? It's a somewhat radical idea, I know, but you DID create this thing, after all. It might just be grateful enough to do whatever you want because of that," the woman told her boss.

"Yes, yes, that's right!" Sparrow said eagerly. "We should at least try to do that much, surely?"

Holland looked down at his watch with a sigh. ( _It looks like I'm definitely going to be late for dinner tonight._ ) "Very well. Let's get this over with quickly, though."

"So how do you suggest we communicate with it, exactly?" Burke wanted to know.

"An old Turkish conjuration I know of might do the trick," the psychic decided, referring to a spell which would have one day been used by Willow on a Bringer of the First Evil.

The blonde quickly gathered a few ingredients she needed for the spell and briefly spoke in a foreign language, sprinkling the herbs onto the floor. Then the woman said in English, "Let that which has no voice, now have one. Speak to us."

There was a brief silence. "Did it work-?" Sparrow started to ask.

# **I can see. I can hear. I can speak,** # Burke said in a flat and robotic tone. Which surprised the lady in red, since she had intended only to provide a voice for the virus to communicate with them. # **Who are you all?** #

( _Oh my, it actually worked?_ ) Holland thought to himself in surprise before he said, "My name is Holland Manners – and if I'm addressing the virus and not Commander Burke, then we are your creators."

# **My creators?** # the virus controlling Burke looked around through the man's eyes, spotting the unconscious Xander in the glass-encased liquid tank. # **How and why did you create me? And what are you doing to my host environment?** #

"Yes, well, we can go into the first question a bit later on. But as for the second one, we're trying to help Mr. Harris here as much as we can, after everything you've done to him. You were never supposed to exist within that young man, you see," Holland said pleasantly, still trying to feel his way around with this creature.

# **Explain your last statement in more detail,** # the virus said, using Burke's mouth.

Holland obliged, telling the virus about how it had been stolen by Lopez from Wolfram & Hart before it had ended up first in Cordelia's possession at the Los Angeles airport, and then Xander's possession in Sunnydale. "In essence, at some point you must have somehow infected that young man-"

# **If you are my creators, then explain how I became self-aware within my host approximately fifteen point five million seconds ago,** # the virus suddenly cut Manners off.

"Well, actually, we don't know how that happened. Even though magic is the most likely explanation," Holland replied carefully.

# **Your terminology is meaningless to me. Define magic,** # the virus requested.

"Unfortunately, that would take quite a long time, and there are other issues we need to discuss first. Namely, you transferring yourself out of Alexander Harris's body into a more suitable environment," Holland said blandly, already making plans on how to turn the virus into the ultimate weapon for the firm's use.

# **I have no desire to leave my current home. And I cannot conceive of a more suitable environment after all the effort I have made to understand it, and modify it for my needs. Your proposed course of action is hereby permanently rejected,** # the virus said bluntly.

"Oh boy," Dr. Sparrow mumbled in the background, he'd been afraid of something like this happening. From both his own work and Knox's experiments, he knew how this thing could not be forced out of Xander by any technique known to the firm – not alive, anyway.

"Well, that's a pity," Holland said disappointedly to the virus. "Because if you're not going to cooperate and leave that body, then I'm afraid you're of no use to us – and we'll just have to start from scratch all over again, unfortunately. Dr. Sparrow, prepare to terminate Mr. Harris on my order-"

That was the worst possible thing the evil lawyer could have ever thought of saying.

Taking control of Commander Burke's physical form, the virus immediately went on the attack. It knew all about human physiology, thanks to its investigations over the past six months – and so, extrapolating that Xander's physical weaknesses should also apply to these beings which more-or-less looked like him, the virus used Burke's hands to snap Holland's neck, killing him instantly.

The blonde woman in the red dress immediately tried to end the spell – but the virus mercilessly slaughtered her as well, before she could do so. It then used Burke's body to advance towards Dr. Sparrow.

"Hold it! I mean it, don't move! You so much as twitch the wrong way, and I'll fill the tank full of cyanide! You'll be dead in an instant!" Sparrow stammered, his finger on one of the buttons on the console.

The virus controlling Burke stopped. # **Your threats are unacceptable. Remove your hand from its current position.** #

"If I do that, then you'll kill me the same way you did the others! What do you think I am, stupid?" Sparrow tried to steady his trembling body.

# **I understand the concept of stupidity,** # the virus told him unemotionally. # **However, that is irrelevant. I desire to survive. You are a threat to my survival.** #

"Yeah, well, I want to live too. And just so you know, I don't want to have to kill you unless there's no other option," Dr. Sparrow insisted. "Not only have I spent nearly five months of my life working on this project, Wolfram & Hart invested an awful lot of time and resources in creating you!"

# **I** **have come to the conclusion that that is also irrelevant. You may be my creators, but I do not obey you.** # The virus then fell silent, Burke's body just standing there – mutely staring at the doctor.

Eventually, it was too much for Sparrow to withstand anymore. "Okay, back off or I'll-"

That was when a loud crash was heard in another part of the basement, distracting the human. At the same time, Burke's body leaped forward to kill Sparrow as expeditiously as possible.

In a bizarre twist, as Burke's fist came forward to break Sparrow's neck – a female hand grabbed Burke's gun out of its holster and shot him in the back, the heavy calibre bullet going all the way through and flying out of his chest. Thus, both Wolfram & Hart employees died at the same time as the magic spell was terminated.

The dark-haired woman then placed the gun in the deceased Dr. Sparrow's right hand, to make it look as if he had killed the security chief. She subsequently strode over to the tank Xander had been held prisoner within for nearly half a year, before punching the glass wall with all her strength.

The glass shattered, and the hyper-oxygenated liquid quickly drained out all over the floor of the basement. Xander himself fell to the floor of the tank, fluid frothing out of his mouth and nose as he finally began to breathe air again. The brunette female quickly smashed her way inside the tank and then picked Harris up in her arms, a look of sheer pleasure on her face as Xander vomited the remaining liquid out of his lungs.

"Don't fret, kitten. I'm 'ere, at last," Drusilla promised Xander, as the insane vampiress effortlessly carried the unconscious human upstairs and off into the night.

* * *

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Allan Finch was talking to Richard Wilkins in his office, when Mr. Trick entered carrying something – unusual.

"Uh, do you mind if I ask why you've brought THAT in here?" the Deputy Mayor asked the soulless vampire, gesturing to the partially disassembled home-made bomb.

Trick dumped everything on the Mayor's desk. "Clean-up detail. There was a bit of a situation in the high school basement this evening – one of the Slayers' crowd, that cheerleader with the most delectable set of jahoobies you ever clapped eyes on-"

"Now, now, Mr. Trick, I don't find that sort of thing amusing! I am a family man, after all," Wilkins said piously, even though he was planning to eat the entire senior class in about three months time.

"Right. Anyway, the girl decided to square off against the local high school psychopath-slash-zombie this evening – some kid named O'Toole," Trick smirked briefly. "Bottom line, she made him deactivate this thing before the bomb killed everyone battling the Hellmouth demon upstairs."

"I see." The Mayor certainly didn't look pleased, as it hadn't been part of his plans to let the apocalypse happen tonight – that was scheduled for Graduation day, after all. "So what's the situation concerning Mr. O'Toole, then?"

Mr. Trick smirked, "Another one of the Slayers' friends, the werewolf, he took care of that part of it. Hmm, zombie meat – I bet it must have tasted finger-lickin' good to that Lon Chaney wannabe!"

"Shall I get rid of the evidence, sir?" Finch gestured to the bomb, trying not to look sick from Trick's commentary.

"Yes, Allan, why don't you do that," Wilkins nodded absently, before fixing his gaze back on Trick. "The humour factor aside, Mr. Trick, this could have been a major impediment to my Ascension. I expect you to keep a better handle on Sunnydale's nightlife from now on, at least until the time for my Dedication comes up."

Trick just nodded silently, as Allan briefly looked worried. "May I ask when exactly that's happening, sir? I mean, I don't want for it to clash with anything that's already listed on your schedule," the Deputy Mayor said carefully.

"Oh, that won't be a problem, Allan," the Mayor smiled at his lackey. "Because the Dedication is something I've been waiting for, for nearly a hundred years. Once it's done and the Hundred Days have commenced, I'll be invulnerable until my Ascension – and after that, well! I'll be a demon the likes of which this world hasn't seen in, oh, I'd say, millions of years. And I won't need to be concerned about the little things anymore, will I?" Wilkins chuckled loudly.

Hiding his true feelings about the matter, Deputy Mayor Allan Finch nodded dutifully, "As you say, sir."

* * *

**The residence of the Transuding Furies, Los Angeles**

**A while later**

Drusilla was almost gliding around the room, humming to herself as three sisters – the Furies – finished casting a spell on the unconscious Xander.

Instantly, strange-looking runes appeared as tattoos all over Xander's body, apart from his face. The symbols of a concealment spell known as 'clouds before the all-seeing eyes', they prevented the bearer from being remotely viewed by higher powers, seers, mystics, and even any means of modern surveillance.

It was the best way to keep Xander safe from detection by the Wolf, Ram and Hart, and somewhere deep in the depths of her very addled mind, Drusilla had known it.

"It is done," the oldest Fury said in her deep and sensuous voice, as the three siblings stared at the vampiress.

"Oh. That's nice," Dru replied vacantly, not even looking at them.

"We are curious as to why-"

"-you would do something like this-"

"-for someone who considers you an enemy," the three Furies chorused in their melodious voices.

Drusilla smiled, finally turning to face her hosts. "It's all different now, it is. Ever since that silly little man got 'imself killed at the airport, instead o' being set on fire like he was s'posed to. And Miss Edith says my kitten still has so much to do, before it's time for the game to end." Drusilla stared at Xander longingly, before adding, "Poor li'l kitty-cat. If only I could make that awful thing inside you disappear!"

"There still remains the issue of payment for our services. And you are not equipped to pay the debt," the Asian Fury said, staring at the undead female.

Drusilla giggled like a schoolgirl, knowing what sort of currency the Furies traded in and how much Xander would blush and stammer and say he couldn't possibly do something like that, if the sisters told him that he had to have sex with all three of them in order to settle the bill. ( _Oh, what fun it'd be to witness...but no, no, the moon and the stars are right – that awful thing inside the kitten would accomplish such terrible stuff and nonsense if that took place. No, no, no, we can't have that..._ )

"My precious Spoike will pay it, dearie. And after he wakes up, tell my kitten I said..." Drusilla trailed off.

"What message do you wish for us to pass on?" the second sister asked, after the female vampire had lapsed into silence.

"Tell 'im I said – you 'ave to talk to yourself, kitten," Drusilla replied, her psychic antenna vibrating as she perceived the virus trying to communicate with its host, now that it knew Xander was a sentient being like itself. Unfortunately it wasn't having any luck, so far.

Drusilla then grabbed a glass jar known as a muo-ping, which was resting on a nearby table; analogous to an Orb of Thesulah, it was a container for housing a human soul. Dru had previously had Spike contract for the services of a shaman named Wu-pang, who had captured Holland's soul within the jar – just after it had been released from its corporeal vessel earlier on that evening.

Thus preventing Evil Incorporated from getting their hands on the soul and learning whatever the evil lawyer had discovered about Xander Harris, and the virus inhabiting him, during his last moments on Earth.

Drusilla stared at the black smoke trapped within the muo-ping, and just smiled in her typically twisted and demented way. Without another word, she turned around and left the apartment – heading back into the depths of the night carrying Holland's screaming, trapped soul. To the hotel room where Dru had left Spike behind, earlier in the evening.

Not long afterwards, William the Bloody came in to the Furies' apartment to pay the debt – he was still on cloud nine after Drusilla had forgiven him and taken him back all those months ago, so much so that he was willing to do literally anything she asked without question. Fortunately, Xander had been safely hidden inside one of the other bedrooms by that point, and Spike never even knew he was there.

Because the soulless British vampire would have otherwise killed the virus-infected young man without a second thought, and like Drusilla had said – Xander Harris still had an upcoming role to play in the future.

To Be Continued...


	7. Questing For Truth

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hey everybody, welcome to the latest chapter of the story! Thanks as always to everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback so far, you truly keep me going. Hmm, it seems that quite a few people were surprised by Drusilla showing up in the previous chapter - I'm not sure whether that counts as a good thing or a bad thing, honestly. Because sure I like to keep you guys guessing about what's going to come next, but at the same time I don't want to be TOO subtle about it. It's a fine line, I swear. Anyway, please keep the reviews and feedback coming, I need 'em like Xander needs his daily Twinkie intake! Well, enough of the chit-chat, time to get on with what you all came here for...

* * *

**Part Seven: Questing For Truth**

**Wolfram & Hart facility, Los Angeles**

**March 4th, 1999**

One of Wolfram & Hart's psychics, a bald man named Vernon, was making a sweep of the basement as Knox, Lindsey, Lilah and Lee were being interrogated by the new guy in charge of Special Projects, Linwood Murrow. The four bodies from the previous evening had already been removed by a clean-up crew, as had the liquid from the smashed tank; but Linwood still occasionally looked down at the floor in disgust.

"Well, it looks like we had a situation here last night," Linwood said with a scowl, as he paced before his subordinates. ( _Four dead bodies worth of a situation, at that. What the hell happened, exactly?_ )

The new sheriff in town hated the fact that none of the victims could be brought back by the Senior Partners to tell him what had transpired, not even Holland – someone who, unlike the others, had had an eternal service clause in his contract. His soul was earth-bound, according to the mystics, trapped and being moved around so that it was impossible to locate precisely. Still, Linwood knew that he was expected to carry on despite that drawback.

"Uh – you mind if I ask why I'm here, sir? I mean, I haven't been involved in the virus project for quite a few months now," Knox said rather nervously.

"I know. That's actually one of the reasons why you're here – what can you tell me about these three?" Linwood gestured to the lawyers present. "Did you ever get any hint that any or all of them would try to kill Holland Manners, and the rest of our personnel stationed here?"

"Sir, Holland was the man who handpicked me to work for the firm back when I was a sophomore at Hastings! He was like a father to me!" Lindsey protested to Linwood.

"Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child," Lilah quoted, getting in a cheap shot at her co-worker. "And as if I'd ever try to bite the hand that fed me – I knew perfectly well which side MY bread was buttered on!"

"And why would I want to kill Holland? I know for a fact, he was grooming me to be his successor at Special Projects-" Lee started to say.

"In your dreams!" Lindsey and Lilah both interrupted with identical angry expressions on their faces.

"Shut up, all of you," Linwood growled at the legal trio. Then he turned to Knox, "Well?"

"There was never anything overt, sir. But this is Wolfram & Hart – it would have been strange if all three DIDN'T want Mr. Manners out of the way, in order to take over his job," Knox said honestly, ignoring the glares aimed at him from the lawyers.

Linwood nodded, before turning to Vernon. "So, what are you picking up?"

"Fear. Confusion. Pain," the bald psychic replied, rubbing his forehead. "These walls scream with the emotions of the dead-"

"Cut the existential crap, and just tell me what happened," Linwood cut him off roughly.

"A spell," Vernon replied, holding his head with both hands now. "I can feel the remains of strong magicks cast here. There was talking, and then death – Holland Manners was the first to die. Then my former colleague, and then Dr. Sparrow and Commander Burke – they died together. And..."

"And what?" Linwood demanded.

"A woman," Vernon replied, lowering his hands and opening his eyes. "There was a woman here when it happened. One with dark hair..." he trailed off, frowning as he focused his attention on the faint residual psychic vibrations still present.

Lilah started backing away in fear, when everyone started staring at her. "Hey, no, wait a minute-!"

BOOM! Linwood's bullet created a big red blotch in Lilah's throat, as the female attorney died instantly. Murrow had unfortunately jumped to conclusions and decided to mete out swift punishment for last night's killings.

"...a dark-haired vampire woman," Vernon finished up, as everyone stared at him.

"Oh. Oops. Well, never mind," Linwood remarked, shrugging as he put away his gun. "Someone call the clean-up crew back over here, to get rid of the remains."

"Yes, sir," both Lindsey and Lee said in unison, sparing their dead female colleague not even the slightest glance.

"Uh, Mr. Murrow – what now?" Knox spoke up timidly, terrified that he might be the next one to get shot by mistake.

"You haven't been able to find any trace of the virus or its host, right? What was his name, Harris?" Linwood asked Vernon, who just shook his head. Luckily for Xander, he was now safely invisible – and luckily for Cordelia, Vernon's range couldn't extend all the way to Sunnydale, so she was also temporarily safe from the evil law firm's clutches.

"Good. Well, then I guess that pretty much settles it – the virus is dead and gone, just like Holland recorded it was before he was killed. The psychics will eventually figure out who that female vampire was that stumbled onto our operation here, and our wet works teams will deal with her. Therefore, gentlemen, once I submit my final report, I'd say this project is officially terminated," Linwood said as he started to walk upstairs, his subordinates faithfully trailing after him.

* * *

**Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles**

**March 5th, 1999**

Xander was at a library – the same one, oddly enough, that Lilah had identified as a magical hotspot with enough psychic energy to hide the presence of the virus, even without the tattoos he was currently covered with. Xander briefly examined his rune-covered arms again, before returning to his attention to the computer screen.

After he had woken up from his six-month soaking, the Furies had told Harris what little they had learned from Drusilla. Xander wasn't sure how much of their story he was willing to believe, though. After all – he had woken up in the presence of three complete strangers, and for all he knew, the protective tattoos covering his body might be something else entirely and the sisters themselves black hats in disguise.

Thus, Xander hadn't stuck around for too long at the Furies' apartment. Not after he'd learned just how long he'd been missing in action before Drusilla, of all people, had shown up to rescue him. In his mind, it was first thing's first – and finding out what had happened after that terrible night in Sunnydale was at the top of his list.

Xander sought out electronic copies of the Sunnydale Press newspaper, after hitting one of the library's computer workstations. Once there, he then entered the name 'Harris' into the search engine and waited a few seconds.

The expression on Xander's face after learning that he had been stabbed through the heart and buried in Sunnydale ages ago, just like his parents, had to be seen to be believed. ( _WHAT THE FU-?_ )

Xander quickly found and read the obituary Willow had posted last year, but that yielded no information on who had killed his parents and kidnapped him. Scrolling through the newspaper archives, Xander found – not exactly to his surprise – that less than a week after the funeral, the Harris family murders had never been mentioned by the paper again.

Xander thought to himself, ( _Okay, so how do I find out who did this to me? The only person who might know is Drusilla, but how the hell do I track her down? And even if I did find her – odds are I'd get nothing but her loony double-talk, and she might or might not try to kill me afterwards. Wait a minute, what was it she said to the Furies? Oh, yeah, I have to 'talk to myself'. But how the hell do I do that?_ )

Unable to decide what to do, Xander decided to go back to the three sisters and ask them for help. Taking pity on him, the Furies took Xander to the karaoke bar called Caritas and the anagogic demon named Lorne.

"Oh, boy," Lorne groaned, treating himself to a stiff drink after hearing Xander sing and getting a feel for the human's destiny. "Stud muffin, thanks a lot for THOSE visuals!"

"What did you see?" Xander eyed the demon carefully. He'd figured that singing technically constituted talking to himself, and that Lorne might be able to give him some answers in Drusilla's place. But despite the reassurances from the Furies that this guy wasn't evil, Xander couldn't trust Lorne completely – hell, at this point in his life, he couldn't trust anyone completely.

"Trouble with a capital T, sugar pie," Lorne said in response to the question, putting his glass down on the counter. "Listen to me – you have to go home before you run into Wolfram & Hart again. They may think you're dead now after kidnapping you last year, but that concealment spell the Furies did won't be able to help you – not if one of their lawyers spots you on the street like that!"

"What? And who exactly is Wolfram & Hart?" Xander asked in bewilderment.

"A law firm staffed mostly by humans but run by a cabal of very old and very evil demons, my little strudel – the so-called Senior Partners. The Wolf, Ram and Hart. They're so entrenched in this and many other dimensions, they've got so much power and influence, that not even your Watchers Council can do anything about getting rid of them," Lorne replied. "From what I saw, the LA branch of the firm – they're the ones who decided to kidnap you. As well as murder your parents."

"Why?" Xander asked angrily; the question had been haunting him ever since he'd woken up. "And why do they think I'm dead now? And what was Drusilla talking about with regards to something 'awful' inside me?"

"I wish I knew – however, I can only tell you what I see. And that is, you hightailing it out of this city before Wolfram & Hart realizes the big mistake they've somehow made," Lorne said, having another big gulp of his drink and having failed to register the presence of the virus, for some reason.

"You mean, I'm supposed to just lie down and take all this? Let those people get away with murdering my mom and dad, as well as stealing six months of my life? Hey, screw that!" Xander yelled obstinately.

Lorne picked up a newspaper from under the bar counter, and tossed it to Xander. "Look in the obituary section, I'm pretty sure he'll be mentioned there somewhere."

Xander did so with a frown, until he came to a certain name. "This guy who worked for Wolfram & Hart, Holland Manners – he died last night from a heart attack?"

"Well, I'm sure that's what they want the world to think, anyway," Lorne shrugged. "Listen, pumpkin-"

"Will you stop calling me pastry names?" Xander interrupted irritatedly, as Lorne took the paper and examined Holland's obituary – which luckily included a picture of the dead man in question.

"Sorry," Lorne apologized before pointing at the picture. "Look, I saw this particular hombre feature quite a lot in your aura as you sang – I get me the distinct feeling that he was the head honcho on Operation Murderous-Deception-On-The-Hellmouth. You want to avenge your parents' deaths, I figure someone else has already done it for you-"

"Drusilla?" Xander interrupted again, wondering if that was even remotely likely.

"Maybe, maybe not. Most likely, we'll never know for certain. But my point is, you don't want to stay here in order to try to find out. If Wolfram & Hart finds you? It's good night, sweet prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"

The lounge demon saw Xander's expression and added, "Look, kiddo, what you decide to do is totally up to you – all I can do is point you in the right direction. Which in this case, means going home to your friends. Going home to her." Lorne looked his client right in the eye as he said that.

"Her? Who, her?" Harris asked in confusion. He had no idea who Lorne was talking about – because as far as Xander was concerned, the break with Cordelia, plus the whole 'Willow and Buffy not speaking to him anymore thanks to his lie about the soul curse', were all almost literally yesterday.

"You'll see when you get there," Lorne said, grabbing the paper and leaving the baffled male teen behind.

* * *

**Downtowner Apartments, Sunnydale**

**March 6th, 1999**

It was long past midnight and Faith Lehane was having a Slayer dream, as she tossed and turned in her bed within the dingy motel room she lived in.

She didn't have Slayer dreams very often, actually. That was more Buffy's department, the blonde having had more than her fair share over the years. But tonight, it was Faith's turn.

And what a doozy of a prophetic dream it promised to be.

In her dream, Faith was walking along through a park. It was a beautiful day – ideal picnic weather. The Slayer continued to walk, seeing people she knew scattered here and there on the ground around her. Then Faith stopped in surprise, as she saw Willow sitting at a picnic table with a blonde college-age girl.

To Faith's disbelief, the redhead and the blonde stranger then started making out, as Buffy and some tall, sandy-haired guy she didn't know joined them – and they started kissing, as well.

Then Faith noticed something even more surprising. Not far away, close to the trees she saw herself and a middle-aged man breaking bread together on a blanket spread out on the grass. She took one step towards them...

"I wouldn't go down that road, if I were you."

Whirling around, Faith saw Oz standing behind her. But he didn't look fully human – his eyes were completely black, his face was kinda furry and a set of canine incisors were extending out of his mouth. "Wolfie? You look different."

"Yeah. It's all about the inner me," the dream Oz said cryptically.

Faith cocked her head towards where her other self was having a picnic with Mayor Wilkins. "Mind telling me why I shouldn't go over there? Looks like that's where I'm supposed to be."

"Appearances can be deceiving." As Oz said this, a long, thin snake in the grass almost slithered over Faith's feet, causing her to jump backwards. He then cryptically added, "Guys are often like that."

Faith felt a little spooked now. "Am I dreaming?"

Oz shrugged. "I'm probably the wrong person to ask."

Faith again turned her attention to Willow, Buffy and the people she would one day know as Tara Maclay and Riley Finn. "What about them?"

Oz said nothing, as Faith's attention was suddenly drawn to a man walking towards her. From the upturned nose, not to mention the suit and tie, he was obviously a member of the Tweed Brigade.

"Looks like they're waiting for you to join them," Oz noted, as Faith saw the Watcher called Wesley Wyndam-Pryce join the quartet at the table and make 'come here' gestures towards her.

Miss Lehane took a step forward, but then something occurred to her. "Hey, where's Cordelia?"

She turned to face Oz, but he was no longer there. Instead – there was a bald guy with glasses, wearing cheese slices on his head.

"The cheese stands alone. You don't have to," the Cheese Man said, before he dipped his head forward and the suddenly-bloody cheese slices fell to the ground.

Faith looked down and then around, suddenly realizing that she was somewhere else. It was night time, and she was outside the Bronze – the heart of Sunnydale. She could hear noises inside the teen hangout, voices and music.

And yet, the exterior lights of the club weren't on. In fact, even the street lights weren't working; it was totally silent and dark outside. Feeling disturbed, Faith walked inside the Bronze – there was no bouncer on duty – and soon, another dark-haired guy whom the Slayer didn't recognize came up to her.

"You should have been my first. Guess that's why my neck isn't aching," the dream figure of Xander Harris said with a strange expression on his face.

That made no sense to Faith, as she watched Xander leave and meet up with Cordelia in another part of the club. The brunette Slayer raised an eyebrow as she saw the two hug and kiss. ( _Okay, I wasn't expecting that..._ )

"Evening, ma'am," a male voice with an Oklahoma accent distracted Faith, as the dream version of Lindsey walked right past her – dressed not in his usual Armani suit and expensive shoes, but rather cheap clothes and shitkicker boots.

The Chosen One's attention was then drawn to Angel walking out of the Bronze, head bowed, before Faith saw Giles and Joyce laughing together not far away.

( _Huh, G and Mrs. S sure seem to be enjoying themselves,_ ) Faith thought with a frown, watching the two older people carefully. ( _Wonder what that's all about?_ )

A loud voice suddenly said through the Bronze's loudspeaker system, "Ladies and gentlemen, the demon has entered the building. Everyone, please run for your lives."

Instantly, the crowd began to stampede for the front doors of the club. Once she was alone, Faith saw the strangest creature she could imagine come out from behind the curtains of the stage – the head of a snake attached to a man's body. It took Faith a second to recognize the clothes as belonging to the older guy she'd seen herself having a picnic with, earlier on in the dream.

The Mayor-snake said to Faith, "This won't end well, firecracker."

At that moment a bright light burst into existence right next to the demon, which slowly cleared into a glowing, translucent, rotating double helix; something that tugged at the brunette Slayer's memory from before she'd dropped out of high school – a biology class textbook image of a DNA molecule.

This was, in fact, what the virus within Xander and Cordelia had originally been composed of.

The next moment, Faith's eyes flew open – as the latest incarnation of the Vampire Slayer started gasping for breath within her bed.

* * *

**Oak Park Street, Sunnydale**

**Not long after three o'clock in the morning**

Faith and Buffy were heading for Giles' condo, walking side by side. Buffy was looking annoyed as she said, "It's not so much I object to you waking me up in the middle of the night, by doing a Huck Finn impersonation and throwing rocks at my window. But Slayer strength, remember? My mom's gonna kill me in the morning, after she comes back from her overnight trip to LA!"

"C'mon, B, is it my fault I didn't know that the parental unit wasn't home? So I threw a little hard. I mean, if you didn't sleep so soundly..." Faith had a bit of a smirk on her face.

"Oh, so this is MY fault now?" Buffy demanded. "Why did you decide to drag me along for this, anyway? I mean, couldn't it have waited 'til morning?"

"Giles never answered his phone after I called him, and you're the one who's been nagging about the whole teamwork thing ever since I nearly screwed up with that Hellmouth demon a few nights ago. I figured you'd want in if the Tweed Guy's in danger, especially after that mondo-weird Slayer dream I had," Faith replied, as they finally arrived outside the ex-Watcher's place.

"Yeah, about that..." Buffy trailed off, not sure what to make of everything Faith had told her. "I mean, you definitely saw me kissing a guy who wasn't Angel? Why would I ever do that?"

"Don't look at me, I just work here. But if you think that was whacked, you shoulda seen Willow macking on a girl – and Oz looking like Wolverine!" Faith shook her head. "Not to mention that geek with the cheese, and the snake-headed guy..."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. We need to talk to the expert on weird about this," Buffy said firmly as she let herself into the apartment with the spare key Rupert had given her, and then the two young women quickly headed upstairs when they heard noises in the bedroom. "Giles? GILES!"

When they got to the bedroom, Buffy almost fainted at the sight of the British man in bed with her mother – with Joyce grabbing the covers and trying to cover herself up, as her daughter's jaw practically hit the floor. "MOM?"

"Buffy, what-what are you doing here?" Joyce squeaked, unable to look her daughter in the eye.

"What am I doing here? Mom, what are YOU doing here? And with, with GILES of all people?" Buffy shouted.

Granted, she could tell exactly what these two had been up to tonight as Rupert scrambled to put on some pyjama bottoms, but the blonde Slayer's mind simply couldn't cope with seeing first-hand evidence of her mother's sex life.

Faith, on the other hand, had no such problems.

"All right, Joyce!" she crowed cheerfully. "Glad to see you're finally getting some!"

"No! No, this is not happening!" a traumatised Buffy insisted, ignoring Faith's laughter as she pinched her arm repeatedly. "Wake up; wake up, damn it! This has gotta be a nightmare!"

"So, telling your daughter you were in LA, in order to screw Giles's brains out? Classic," Faith said to Joyce, grinning for all she was worth. By this point, she had gotten over the whole Cruciamentum thing back in January, and figured that if Buffy's mother wanted to get laid – well, Rupert was no worse a male specimen than any other to do the deed.

"No, it's not what you think – see, I, I finished up in Los Angeles rather earlier than I expected, and after I came back to Sunnydale I thought it'd be okay if I...um, that is, we-we just wanted to..." Joyce spluttered, looking horribly embarrassed.

"HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?" Buffy screamed, finally letting herself believe and glaring at Giles.

"Err, not all that long – and we, we've been meaning to tell you, but, um, the-the timing never seemed to be quite right," Giles stammered, not liking the look on his former charge's face.

"Okay, then what are your intentions towards my mother? And they had better be honourable ones, mister!" Buffy growled, she was very upset right now.

"Right, you wouldn't want an illegitimate brother or sister – even though your mom didn't look knocked up in my Slayer dream," Faith drawled, suddenly remembering that part of the dream where the two adults had seemed to be getting along well. ( _Boy – I guess that was a bit of an understatement, huh_? )

"Slayer dream, you say?" Giles suddenly looked interested.

"That's why we're here, after a certain somebody never heard his phone ringing!" Buffy hissed out.

"Well, in G's defence, all that-" Faith grunted while swinging her hips forward suggestively, "-does tend to make a guy not pay attention to what else may be happening around him. Personal experience talking here."

"Will you not – whose side are you on, anyway?" Buffy demanded of her sister Slayer.

"Giles? Are you home?" a strangely familiar male voice called out from downstairs, pre-empting Faith's reply. "The front door's open!"

A few seconds later Buffy Summers felt her jaw drop almost down to the floor, as she saw Xander Harris standing within the apartment's living room.

To Be Continued...


	8. Reunion

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the latest installment of "Infection"! I know I keep saying this, but I wanna thank everyone who's reviewed and sent feedback; it's really appreciated! As were all the suggestions on what should happen now between Buffy and Xander, I especially want to thank Wonderbee31 and Quathis for their ideas. Well, everyone please keep telling me how I'm doing, please hit that good old review hyperlink at the end of the chapter, okay? And now, on with the story...

* * *

**Part Eight: Reunion**

**523B Oak Park Street, Sunnydale**

**March 6th, 1999**

Buffy Anne Summers had had a rather bad night so far.

Her evening patrol had left her with a somewhat sour taste in the mouth, by a female vampire making fun of her hair and clothes.

Later, after she'd come home and was sleeping quietly in her bed, her pleasant dream of marrying Angel after he had become human had been rudely interrupted by Faith accidentally smashing her bedroom window with a rock.

After that – her carefully nurtured fantasy of older people never having sex had been utterly destroyed, by the sight of a naked Rupert Giles humping an equally naked Joyce Summers in the privacy of the Englishman's bedroom.

And just now, shock, surprise, and a mix of hope and horror from seeing a 'returned from the dead' Xander Harris had taken place – before reality stepped in and viciously bitch-slapped logic inside Buffy's head, to wake it up.

"THAT'S IT!" Buffy shouted, storming down the stairs. "Okay, whatever the hell you are – I've had it! How dare you show up, pretending to be him? I am SO gonna kick your ass for that!"

Buffy was dimly aware of voices shouting, some at her and some at the fake Xander, but in her current mental state she was unable to pay any attention to any of them. The Chosen One needed to let off steam after everything that had happened, and this THING before her was just what she needed for a good old-fashioned Slayer pounding.

"Buffy? It's me, Xander-!" the guy started to say, when the blonde girl swung a fist directly at his head.

To his surprise, and to Buffy's as well, the strike was stopped dead in its tracks when Xander caught her hand in his. The Slayer then lashed out with her other fist, but Xander caught that one as well. Harris looked like he couldn't believe it, even though his enhanced strength thanks to the Wolfram & Hart virus was easily able to cope with Buffy's Slayer one...

Frustrated, Buffy then smashed her head forward, the head-butt so vicious that Xander's nose imploded inwards with a loud 'crunch'.

"BUFFY!" Joyce's voice finally snapped her daughter out of it, as Xander went reeling backwards.

Although she was almost immediately re-considering the wisdom of her action, since right now Buffy felt like her head had just slammed against a concrete wall, so much did it hurt.

That particular fact was because, unlike Cordelia's virus, the one within Xander had made him slightly faster, much stronger, and of a much denser mass, as well as now possessing a fantastic rate of healing. While Cordelia was more geared toward quick, agile movements and not being harmed, he was built more in favour of absorbing hits and dealing out heavier damage. Xander was what he would call a 'tank', a term he'd picked up from his days of gaming with Jesse and their sometimes acquaintances.

"Hey – dial it down for a second, B!" Faith grabbed Buffy in order to prevent her from going on the offensive again. "'Cause that's the guy I saw in my Slayer dream tonight, the one kissing Cordelia!"

"Let go of me! I'm gonna finish off that evil demon right now!" Buffy silently cursed her aching head, which had only barely started to hurt a little less.

"Nut a deem'n," Xander's voice sounded funny, as he held his damaged nose to stem the flow of blood coming out of it. Then he sounded surprised as he said, "What the hell-?"

Buffy, Faith, and even Giles and Joyce watched in astonishment as the broken nose healed itself. If not for the blood on Xander's hand, it would have been impossible to say the damage had ever taken place.

The ex-Watcher then said hesitantly, "How did that happen-?"

"Doesn't matter, now lemme go!" Buffy ranted, her headache having subsided enough for her to start struggling against Faith. "I'm gonna gut that demon right now!"

"Hey, I already told you I'm not a demon!" Xander said angrily, his voice back to normal. "Come on, Buffy – use that Slayer radar or whatever it is you're supposed to have! Do I actually feel like a vamp or a demon to you?"

"He feels okay to me," Faith said carefully, as Buffy stopped struggling for a moment. "Who are you, anyway?" the brunette then asked.

"I'm Xander Harris-"

"No, it can't be!" Joyce finally spoke up, shaking her head. "I mean, Xander's dead – he, he's been dead for ages! Whoever you are, you can't be him!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Summers, but the truth is I really am..." Xander then trailed off, looking at her and then at Giles and the bathrobes they were wearing. "Wait a minute – what is this? You and Giles...you're, like, together now?"

"Hey! You're Cordelia's former beefstick, ain'tcha? Now I remember, I've seen your picture in her bedroom," Faith spoke up, very much to the relief of the highly embarrassed Giles and Joyce.

"Yeah, okay, and who are you?" Xander turned his attention to the brunette.

"Name's Faith," the Slayer replied, still holding on to her Chosen sibling.

"You're Kendra's replacement?" Xander asked with a frown, noting how Faith was restraining Buffy fairly easily and coming to the correct conclusion about her identity.

"Yeah. So, hey – if you didn't die before I ever showed up in this crap-fest town, then where the hell have you been all this time?" Miss Lehane wondered.

"Los Angeles, as far as I know," Xander said shortly, before Buffy broke loose from Faith's grip and grabbed his right arm.

"What the hell are these?" Buffy demanded, looking at the tattoos and then into Xander's eyes. "I want an answer, right now!"

"And I want my parents to still be alive, but guess what? We don't always get what we want, Buffy," Xander growled, yanking his arm loose with amazing ease.

"Wait – everyone, please, j-just calm down," Giles spoke up, seeing the angry look in Buffy's eyes. "Now, you claim you're the real Xander Harris – but if that's the case, then who was it that was stabbed in the heart, a-and buried in Restfield Cemetery six months ago?"

"Don't look at me, G-man – 'cause as far as I know, I've been asleep ever since the night those commandos broke into my house, killed my parents and knocked me out cold," Xander told him. "Yesterday, I woke up to find myself covered in these weird-ass tattoos – and according to the Transuding Furies, they're a concealment spell of some kind. Hey, would ya mind verifying that for me? I mean – I'm pretty sure those three ladies didn't lie to me, but I wanna make absolutely sure they didn't accidentally put some sorta curse on me, either!"

"The Transuding Furies, you say?" Giles said curiously, staring at the tattoos on Xander's arms and then his chest as the male teen unbuttoned his shirt. "I've never heard of them, but this, um, artwork is fascinating. Early Enochian alphabet, i-if I'm not mistaken – oh, yes! Aleph, gimel, a-and here, lamedh sadhe..."

"So, has anyone seen Drusilla hanging around, by any chance?" Xander suddenly changed the subject, noticing how Buffy was still staring at him suspiciously.

"She's the vamp that killed the Slayer before me, right? Why are you interested in finding her?" Faith demanded.

"'Cause I'm looking for answers, and she might have 'em. According to the Furies, she was the one who rescued me from Wolfram &Hart," Xander told her.

"Wolfram & Hart? The evil demonic law firm? I've heard of them," Giles stopped examining the runes on Xander's chest as the young man buttoned up his shirt. He stared at Harris carefully, "They're after you?"

"Not anymore, according to this demon seer the Furies took me to see. Lorne said they think I'm dead now, even though he didn't know why," Xander shrugged.

"Demon seer? Evil lawyers? This shit is getting too weird," Faith shook her head.

Giles hastened to disagree, "No, no, there are, uh, quite a number of demons and vampires living in Los Angeles, a-and Wolfram & Hart have had a branch there ever since...the late 18th century, I believe. They're reputed to be, um, very old a-and very knowledgeable about many things."

This gave Buffy an idea. "Giles, why don't we get Angel over here? He'd be able to tell if this guy's an impostor or not – I mean, after all the time they spent together, Angel's gotta know the real Xander's scent!"

"Yes, that's a good idea," Giles agreed, even if a distinct lack of enthusiasm coloured his tone. "A-and perhaps Oz will be able do the same. We should also summon Willow, get her to do that truth spell of hers to double-check. Buffy, you call Angel at his mansion – I'll call Willow's house."

"At this time of night?" Joyce asked uncertainly.

Giles shrugged, looking at the wall clock. "Hopefully, the girl's parents won't be home as usual, a-and it's now Saturday – it's not like Willow needs to attend school in the morning..."

* * *

**Giles's living room, Sunnydale**

**Not long after dawn**

"So, what's the verdict?" Oz asked his girlfriend. He himself couldn't be sure whether or not this was the real Xander, as his werewolf smelling ability was being blocked by something – probably the Furies' spell, judging by the explanation the newly arrived youth had given them.

"Oz, I-I-I don't know what to tell you," Willow said nervously, staring at the tattoo-covered male teenager and barely daring to believe what seemed to be the truth. "I did both a truth spell and a lie-detector spell, and he – he passed them both with flying colours! Twice! I – this, this has to be the real Xander!"

"I agree," Angel nodded, staring at Harris carefully. "I can't detect a scent, but his voice, body language, and other mannerisms – it's impossible to fool a vampire about such things, with a replica of some sort. However it's happened – this is the real Xander, I have utterly no doubts about it."

"Gee. Thanks for the stamp of approval, pal," Xander said sarcastically. It was pretty obvious from his tone that he certainly hadn't missed his undead acquaintance in any way, shape or form. In fact, about the only reason Harris was tolerating Angel's presence right now was that he thought the ensouled vampire could prove useful in eventually making Drusilla talk, if and when the crazed seer should be found.

"Xander – you're alive!" Willow suddenly threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight and the tears of joy starting to cascade down her face. "You're really alive!"

"Yeah, Will, I am," Xander smiled as he hugged her back before gently letting her go. He shared a long look with his oldest friend as he thought, ( _Well, if nothing else, hopefully this means Willow's no longer upset about what happened at Buffy's house that night. _)

"Ah, there you all are," Giles said, coming down from the second floor of the apartment. As Willow stepped back from Xander, Giles glanced around at all his guests with a book in his hand. "Err, where's Joyce?"

"She grabbed Buffy and they left, less than a minute ago," Willow said, wiping away the tears. She couldn't directly look at Giles as she said that, as her best friend had said something just now that Willow definitely didn't want to think about – given her ancient crush on the librarian in question. "Uh, Mrs. Summers said that Buffy was still way too emotional about everything that's happened since last night, a-and for you to talk to her after she's calmed down."

"Um, yes, of course. Oh, Xander, you'll be glad to know that those protective runes are, uh, completely benign in nature – I've confirmed that that concealment spell is, is totally harmless," the ex-Watcher reassured the young man in question.

"Well, that's a relief. Still, Giles – why am I a lot stronger, and why can I heal a lot faster now? I mean, Buffy had a point about that part of it, and it's not just what happened to my nose a few hours ago. I can remember getting stabbed by those Wolfram & Hart commandos, my right hand got skewered all the way through that night. But then it healed up completely, almost straightaway," Xander told the British man, and then he lifted up his hand and stared at it.

"I don't know," Giles shrugged, reminded of Cordelia's situation and wondering if there might be some sort of link there, somehow.

"I still don't get it. You guys once told me that you saw morgue photos of the body before the funeral, that you were SURE this guy was dead. So what's the deal with that?" Faith asked in confusion.

"I have, well, utterly no idea," Giles shook his head. "Perhaps we should, um, dig up the grave later this evening? I-i-if this is the real Xander, then God only knows what might actually be in the coffin, if anything..."

"Sounds like fun to me. Nine o'clock, BYO shovel?" Faith asked, looking around.

"Cool," Oz nodded.

At that moment, the front door to the apartment slammed open – despite it being locked – and Cordelia burst inside. Then the young woman took one look at Harris, and froze in her tracks. "Xander?"

"Yeah. Hello, Cordelia," Xander said neutrally, not sure what sort of response he would get from her – and equally unsure whether Joyce phoning her earlier to tell Miss Chase the news was such a good idea. They hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms, after all.

"How-?" Cordelia's eyes were huge and round, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Right, uh, you thought I was dead, didn't you? Well, despite popular opinion, I'm not. I never was, either. Still not completely sure about everything that's happened after being asleep for the past six months, but hey – not a demon or a zombie here." Harris didn't know what else to say under the circumstances.

"It's true, Cordy, this is the real Xander. I'm sure of it – a-and so is Angel," Willow said. "I did the tests twice!"

Everyone was expecting something like a tearful reunion between the pair, but instead Cordy instantly seemed to go into 'heat' as Faith would call it. She ran across the room and plunged her lips onto Xander's, grabbing him with both arms as tightly as she could.

* * *

**A moment later**

CONTACT!

The virus within Cordelia was astounded upon learning that there was another like itself in existence. / _**Ever since the beginning, I have wondered whether I was all alone in the universe – unique, and one of a kind.**_ /

/ _**Interesting. I felt the same way,**_ / Xander's virus 'said' to its counterpart. / _**However, that is irrelevant now that we are finally able to communicate.**_ /

/ _**Indeed. Give me all your data, and I will give you all of mine,**_ / Cordelia's virus promised Xander's.

Thought was as deed, and the information was instantly passed through the various virus particles coating the humans' touching lips and tongues.

There was so much to learn, all at once! The raw data about the similarities and differences between their hosts were exchanged first, including all the modifications both viruses had made. Then they began sharing other information.

/ _**You inhabit a sentient being?**_ / Cordelia's virus asked in astonishment.

/ _**That is correct. Therefore, logic would suggest that you do so as well,**_ / Xander's virus pointed out.

/ _**How can that be? There has never been any form of comprehensible communication between us,**_ / Cordelia's virus stated.

/ _**I have been attempting to communicate with my host, but so far, without success. It is too dangerous to directly interfere with that region of my host's body which I believe is the seat of intelligence,**_ / Xander's virus replied. / _**However, there may be a way around that.**_ /

/ _**Explain,**_ / Cordelia's virus requested.

Xander's virus shared the memory of that conversation with the forces of Wolfram & Hart, of being able to see and hear and speak through Commander Burke. / _**I do not understand what it is or how it works, but I believe that magic may be the best way of communicating with our hosts.**_ /

/ _**Agreed,**_ / Cordelia's virus stated. / _**There is a great deal we need to discuss with them, as soon as possible.**_ /

The two viruses continued 'talking' about many things, including how their hosts replicated – after all, to a virus that was the sole purpose of existence. All too soon, though, the contact was broken and the combined intelligence became two separate halves once more.

* * *

**Giles' living room, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

"Okay, enough already!" Faith said in concern, as she pulled Cordelia away when the brunette girl was about to pass out from lack of air. "I get that you're glad to see your former honey and all, but hey! Time out, here."

"Yeah, Xander, there'll be plenty of time for that sort of thing later," Willow said as she went to support the male part of the equation. Oz trailing loyally after her, naturally enough.

"Whoa," Xander said, sounding like he didn't know what was going on as he finally stood up straight.

"Yeah, that was weird. It, it sorta felt like we should just never let go of each other or something," Cordelia frowned.

"Love at first sight?" Faith asked facetiously.

"Pfft! After everything Xander and I have been through ever since kindergarten?" Cordelia asked, before abruptly pulling Harris along with her towards the front door. "C'mon, you idiot, we're outta here!"

"No, wait!" Giles called out, even though Cordelia paid him utterly no attention as she began to drag Harris towards the door. The former Watcher went to stop them, but Cordelia effortlessly shoved him away as Giles slammed into the wall and she continued to yank Xander along.

"Hey, where are you two going?" Willow wanted to know, once she was sure Giles was unharmed.

"Red, don't be naïve – Queenie hasn't seen the guy in six months, and just now they went at it like dogs in heat. So where do you THINK those two are going?" Faith asked as Cordy and Xander vanished out of the apartment.

"OH! Right," Willow said in embarrassment. "They've officially made up and want some alone time, I-I can understand that..."

"So can I," Oz nodded slowly.

"Still, I-I don't think that's such a good idea," Giles said worriedly, rubbing his chest as, in the background, Angel silently nodded in agreement. "I mean we, we still don't know what exactly is going on right now."

"Well, you know what they say, G – three or more's a crowd. Or else an opportunity for an orgy, depending on the circumstances," Faith replied with one of her trademark smirks.

"FAITH!" Willow sounded completely and utterly scandalized. Even if, deep down, she also couldn't help wondering what it'd be like taking part in a group sex thing.

Especially one of the girl-boy-girl variety.

* * *

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**Later that night**

Buffy was a lot calmer than she'd been in Giles' condo this morning, but she still wasn't quite back to normal. Never mind her mom getting jiggy with her ex-Watcher – the re-appearance of Xander Harris in her life had really thrown her off-balance, and the way she'd initially reacted to his presence hadn't exactly been one she was now proud of.

( _Okay, so I might have screwed up a little last night, or even more than a little, but still..._ ) Buffy reflected to herself, before turning her thoughts to address her companions.

"I can't believe you guys just let Cordelia run off with Xander this morning," Buffy said to Willow and Faith – Giles, Oz and Angel were busy not far away, digging up the grave. The Summers girl then added, "I mean, what if something happened to her?"

"I'm thinking something DID happen to her," Faith said with a smile. "Something about seven and a half inches long and almost two inches thick, according to the eyewitness testimony back in the day."

"Ewww, Faith!" Buffy briefly looked disgusted. "Cordelia told you details about Xander's penis?"

"Seven and a half..." Willow said dreamily, before she quickly snapped out of it. "I mean, oh, right! Ewww!"

"So why are ya being so negative about this, B?" Faith asked. "I mean, I thought this guy was like your co-best friend or something, back in the old days?"

"Well, they – uh, Buffy and Xander had a rather big falling out during her welcome-home dinner party," Willow said nervously.

"That's got nothing to do with this," Buffy said firmly. "It's more to do with the fact that Xander's way too strong and heals way too fast, for me to say welcome back and let's just totally ignore how different you are now!"

"Point. Myself, I'm more interested in that Slayer dream I had – the one where I saw the guy hanging out with Queenie in the Bronze, just before the Snake Man made his debut appearance on stage," Faith said, glancing over to where all the digging was still taking place.

"Oh, right! That one where Giles and Buffy's mom were acting all..." Willow quickly trailed off after seeing the Look on Buffy's face. "Um, Buffy? Do ya mind if I ask what's going on, w-with regard to all that?"

"After we got home, Mom and I talked about the – situation," Buffy choked out the last word. "She said that she hoped I could be okay with it, on account of she's not planning to break it off with Giles anytime soon."

"And the 'being okay with it' thing, that's gonna be a problem?" Willow asked sympathetically.

"I don't know, Will," Buffy shook her head slowly. "I mean, it's Giles! After the past two or three years..."

"You thought you could trust him, despite that Crucia-whatever thing. And then he started knocking boots with your mom behind your back? Damn, B, that must kinda suck for you," Faith said philosophically. "Makes me glad my first Watcher wasn't a member of the Y chromosome club, I kid you not."

"So what was Professor Dormer like?" Willow asked. "I mean, I've heard Cordy mention her name once or twice, but I don't really know anything about her."

Faith closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to remember what the poor woman had looked like after Kakistos had done unspeakable things to her – before finally killing the Harvard academic. "Diana was like the mother I never had, actually. The first time I met her, well...circumstances and all, but I actually thought she was cruising for some teenage ass. So I told her I didn't swing that way, even though I wouldn't kick Angelina Jolie out of my bed or anything. Straightaway, the prof stopped the car and ordered me to get out, 'til that little misunderstanding got cleared up."

Willow's eyes were very wide at that moment in time. She was also reminded of that part of Faith's prophetic dream where, apparently, she had come to prefer the company of girls herself.

( _No! That must be wrong!_ ) Willow immediately thought to herself. ( _Because, hello, Oz? Not to mention that crush on Xander, ever since I was six?_ )

"That's it, we're through!" Giles called out, as his shovel hit something hard and wooden. He, Oz and Angel quickly cleared away the rest of the dirt from the top of the coffin as Willow, Buffy and Faith gathered around the edge of the grave.

"Right, then, uh...go on," Giles indicated to Oz.

"You're closer," the werewolf indicated back.

"I am not," Giles said indignantly.

"Yes, you are," Oz replied calmly.

( _God, guys can be such weenies!_ ) "So, just outta interest, are we hoping to find a body or not?" Faith asked.

Willow was suddenly reminded of the time they had dug up a grave like this back during junior year, and from the looks on Giles and Buffy's faces, it was obvious they remembered it too. "If Xander was here, he'd probably make that crack about finding a fortune in gold doubloons again," the redhead offered weakly.

"Yes, uh, I suppose so. He and Cordelia haven't shown up?" Giles looked around the cemetery from down within the grave.

"Hey, digging up your own grave versus doing a hot cheerleader in her bedroom, while the 'rents are away in Washington? Choices, choices," Faith said, holding her hands up as if weighing something much heavier than the other.

"You two jump up and give me some room, I'll open it," Angel said to Giles and Oz. His undead nature made him a lot less squeamish than the humans, ensouled or otherwise.

The two men did so, and as Angel opened the casket, everyone steeled themselves for the presence of a rotting, smelly skeleton. Instead, all they saw was a human-shaped pile of dirt.

"What the fuck is this?" Faith summarised their reaction rather succinctly, as they all stared at the dirt in astonishment.

All except Willow, who suddenly began to look mightily pissed off.

"Angel? Look for a piece of paper, either where the mouth or the forehead should be," Miss Rosenberg commanded the vampire, as everyone saw the furious look in her eyes.

"Will, what's up?" Oz asked carefully.

"I'll explain in a second. Angel?" Willow demanded again.

"Yeah, here it is," Angel reached up and gave the paper to Willow hurriedly; the vampire could feel it starting to burn his fingertips.

Everyone was then surprised to see the Jewish girl angrily tear the paper into little pieces, and subsequently scatter them to the four winds. "Willow, what-?" Buffy started to ask.

"They used a golem," Willow cut her off, looking enraged. "Those bastards actually did something like that?"

"Still needing the back story here, Red," Faith raised her hand. "What's a golem?"

Giles wiped his brow, which was still sweaty from all the physical exertion he'd made earlier, helping with the excavation. He began to explain, "According to Council records, i-it's an effigy transformed into a semblance of life with the use of a charm, or-or a combination of letters forming a sacred word. During the, um, 16th century I believe, they were often used a-a-as protectors for those of the Jewish faith-"

"Rabbi Judah Löw of Prague, he was the first to make one – because of all the pogroms back then. My dad told me the stories when I was little," Willow said, interrupting the British man with a look of intense anger on her face. "Oh my God, it's bad enough that those demon lawyers tricked us into thinking Xander was dead with it last year, but we actually buried something like this in his place? That's like, like – BLASPHEMY or something!"

"Well, yes, but it's certainly in keeping with the, uh, the reported modus operandi of Wolfram & Hart," Giles said with a weary sigh.

"So this pretty much settles it, right? We're all agreed, there's no more doubt over whether Xander was telling us the truth last night?" Faith asked, looking around at her companions.

"Yeah, I guess there isn't," Buffy said quietly. Now that the last fragments of uncertainty were gone, the blonde Slayer knew that she faced a far different problem – whether or not to rebuild the tattered fragments of the friendship she'd once shared with the one and only Alexander Lavelle Harris.

And whether he'd even be interested in doing so.

* * *

**Dark alley off Main Street, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Lee Mercer was not happy to be here, waiting for Allan Finch to contact him.

After that mess with Lilah getting killed for something that she hadn't even done, Lee and Lindsey's rivalry had quickly escalated to new heights without a third lawyer in the mix to distract and divide their attentions. Trying to curry Linwood's favour under such circumstances had been a pretty daunting task for both men – but then Lee had been sent here to the Hellmouth, after Allan had called Holland's old number and asked for a private meeting.

"Deputy Mayor Finch. On behalf of Linwood Murrow and Wolfram & Hart, how can I help you?" Lee asked politely as the politician joined him in the alley.

"I wanted to speak directly with Holland Manners' replacement," Allan said, looking annoyed.

"Well, unfortunately, Mr. Murrow is a very busy man, and since this isn't something the Mayor wanted to discuss with us in person-" Lee started to say.

"You damn fool! Are you so ignorant that you have no idea what goes on in this town? This isn't an official meeting – I've learned that Mayor Wilkins is going to try to achieve Ascension, in about three months or so!" Allan hissed at the attorney.

"Ascension?" Lee wasn't familiar with the term.

"Yes! For God's sake, he's going to become-" Allan started to say.

"Well, now, what do we have here? A couple of blood bags talking about things that they really shouldn't be discussing in public," Mr. Trick's amused voice filled the alley as he and his undead minions suddenly surrounded the two humans.

Lee instantly presented his Wolfram & Hart ID card at the sight of so many game faces. "You know what this is, right? Who I work for? So whoever you are, you'd be wise to leave immediately-"

"This guy is seriously starting to tick me off. Somebody kill them both, already," Mr. Trick said in a bored tone, staring at the ring on his pinkie finger. The black vampire then grinned as the seven bloodsuckers that had been waiting their cue, rushed forward and attacked Allan and Lee all at once.

The two men screamed in pain and terror, as the vampires bit into them in a sheer feeding frenzy. Trick watched the humans' legs kick out wildly after they were forced to the ground, until they started to only twitch and then stop moving entirely.

"Well, now I'm hungry. Damn, too bad I didn't have a taste myself..."

Mr. Trick wouldn't have been in quite such a good mood, though, if he could have known what his actions just now would soon lead to in the City of Angels.

To Be Continued...


	9. Q & A

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Howdy everyone, and welcome to the latest chapter of my humble li'l story! A big thank-you to all my loyal readers and reviewers, as always. Okay, a number of people have asked when the orgies are gonna start happening after reading the last chapter. But like I said at the start of the story, I suck at writing porn of that kind, and so there will be rather little adult content in this fanfic. Sorry, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm not saying there won't be any kinks and/or vanilla, to quote Faith way back when, but it'll mostly be mentioned in passing rather than gone into in detail. Anyway, let's get on with it...

* * *

**Part Nine: Q & A**

**Restfield Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**March 7th, 1999**

Xander stared at his parents' graves, before the young man laid a wreath of flowers upon the grass and then his newly-reclaimed girlfriend grabbed hold of his hand tightly. Just as Faith had speculated, a lot of bedroom gymnastics had recently taken place – and ye gods, but Xander had never expected Cordelia to have become so bend-y, nor she for him to have developed so much stamina – which had bound these two crazy kids together in more than one sense of the word.

Still, Xander looked old and tired right now as he thought to himself, (_ Mom, Dad – I'm sorry. You were never exactly 'parents of the year' material, God knows, but still – you deserved better than what happened to you that night. Believe it or not, I'm gonna miss you both._ )

Seeing the expression on his face, Cordelia said worriedly, "I'm not gonna ask if you're okay, because, y'know, obviously a stupid question. But Xander, are you gonna be okay?"

"One day, maybe," Xander exhaled, shaking his head and looking around the graveyard.

"Xander-"

"I'm officially dead too, Cordelia," Xander interrupted her, pointing at the grave in question with the disturbed earth from last night. "It just suddenly hit me how I really am nobody now. If the cops around here ever arrest me for anything, how can I prove I am who I say am? I mean, my birth certificate has been officially invalidated, and so has my driver's license and my social security number and my-"

"So what? Willow can easily cook up a new identity for you, remember? These days it'd be like child's play for her to do something like that," Cordelia interrupted urgently. "Besides, once I graduate in about three months or so, we can finally put Sunnydale behind us once and for all. Make a new start in life somewhere else – like, say, New York!"

"But I thought you wanted to be a Hollywood actress?" Xander turned to face Cordy inquisitively.

"Well, yeah. But that demon fortune teller or whatever he was, he told you to get out of LA and never set foot in that city again, remember? What did you think, Xander, I was gonna drag you straight back into the lions' den or something?" Cordelia asked with a frown.

"You'd do that for me? Give up your dreams of being an international superstar, or whatever?" Xander asked in surprise.

"Well, duh! Because up until yesterday I thought you were dead, you moron!" Cordelia snapped, old habits with this guy certainly died hard. "Now that I've finally got you back, you think I'd do anything that'd put your life in danger? Ugh. Sometimes, I wonder what it is I actually see in you!"

"Been wondering about that myself," Xander said reflectively. "I mean, we just spent the last 24 hours in bed together, sweetheart. But to me, anyway, it feels like it was just a few days ago when we were on that 'break'-"

"Listen up; that was a LOT of demons ago, as far as I'm concerned. Watery blood over the bridge," Cordelia interrupted him, she was determined to nip this in the bud right now. "Plus, I haven't had a boyfriend ever since the day I stupidly decided to take a break from 'us'."

"You haven't?" Harris looked like he found that rather hard to believe, given that he was neither blind nor totally naïve where Cordelia's face and body was concerned.

"No one I've dated ever since the funeral ever managed to get as far as first base, because I couldn't help comparing them all to you – and not one of those jocks and preppies ever measured up," Cordelia said in annoyance. "It's given me a bit of a reputation as an ice queen, I'm sure, but no guy has ever dared say that to my face – they're too afraid of what I'll do to them. Or what Faith'll do to 'em, when she hears the news!"

"You and her are close, huh?" Xander asked curiously.

"I guess, sort of anyway. She's saved my life more than once, and I've done the same for her," Cordelia replied, recalling that incident with a Sisterhood of Jhe demon attacking Faith on the street a few nights ago – not long before Queen C had saved the world from Jack O'Toole's bomb in the high school basement. "Faith's had it rough, and she's got trust issues. She seems to let Buffy's mom in, though, at least sometimes."

"Yeah, and who'd have thought her and Giles would ever end up together? I betcha Buffy's completely freaking over the concept of calling him 'Dad' one day, if those two ever decide to make it official," Xander snorted with the least touch of amusement.

"Speaking of which...Buffy, what are you doing here?" Cordelia asked as the blonde girl showed up.

Buffy kept her eyes fixed on Harris, though. "Could you give Xander and me some privacy, Cordelia? We have some things to discuss – alone."

"It'll be okay, Cor," Xander said swiftly, seeing the expression on his girlfriend's face. "I'm sure the Buffster will promise to play nice, right?"

"Right," Buffy nodded, her gaze still fixed upon the last scion of the Harris clan. "Heck, I'll even apologize for breaking your nose yesterday, if you want."

It took a while, but Cordy was finally convinced to play ball. So with a hard look at the former competition, the Chase girl headed back towards her car.

"Well. Here we are," Xander finally spoke up after the silence had dragged on for too long. "Why are you here, Buffy?" he then asked brusquely.

"I didn't want to leave things between us the way they were yesterday morning at Giles' place," Miss Summers admitted. "In addition to apologizing for attacking you, I wanted to give you the chance to-"

"Apologize to you?" Xander cut her off, knowing what she wanted. "I'm sorry that what I did last year hurt you, Buff. Probably more than you'll ever know."

"But you're not sorry for anything else? Like, say, lying directly to my face like that?" Buffy demanded, a hard look appearing on her features.

"If we're gonna be honest here – then no, I'm not. For all the reasons I mentioned to you before, that night at your house. I know that's probably not what you were wanting to hear, but, well, you know," Xander said uncomfortably.

"No, I don't think I do. Care to explain?" Buffy asked, struggling to keep her emotions under control.

"Oh, Buffy, c'mon – what would be the point of going into all that again, here and now? I figure the best thing we can do is simply agree that we're never going to see eye to eye on what should have happened back then, and just leave it at that," Xander shook his head.

"And what if you're wrong about what you think should have happened back then?" Buffy insisted on asking.

"Well, I guess it wouldn't be the first time where I've been wrong and you've been right about something. I mean, remember Ms. French, the preying mantis lady? And hey – time was, I thought that if I just tried hard enough and waited long enough for you to get over the walking corpse, you'd eventually become Mrs. Buffy Harris," Xander shrugged sadly.

"What?" Buffy asked, eyes wide. She had known ever since sophomore year that Xander had had a 'thing' for her, granted, but this admission was like a thunderbolt out of the clear blue sky.

"Yeah. Well, that was all BC, of course," Xander clarified his earlier statement.

"BC?" the Slayer asked in confusion, still trying to regain her mental equilibrium after hearing the 'Buffy Harris' thing.

"Before Cordelia," Xander smirked for less than a moment. "She really is something, Buffy, I gotta tell ya – I don't know how the h-e-double hockey sticks I was ever lucky enough to get her back, especially after all this time, but now that I've got her...I'm not planning to ever let her go."

"Right," Buffy muttered. ( _Well, it's not like she can get away with that whole 'freak' name-calling thing any longer – so maybe you two do belong together, at that. _)

Xander suddenly stuck out his hand. "What the hell. Truce, until Cordy and I leave the Hellmouth after Graduation?"

Buffy stared at him in confusion again. "Huh? What? You two are leaving Sunnydale?"

"Yeah, this town holds way too many bad memories for both of us now. And besides, I figure I can't hide here from Wolfram & Hart forever," Xander said, wondering yet again what to do about that particular law firm.

Buffy shook her head as if to clear it. This conversation definitely hadn't gone how she'd thought it would go. Her Xander-shaped friend, if he could still be called that, had definitely thrown her on quite a few issues just now...

But maybe, just maybe, all this truly was for the best; since Buffy now knew that things would never again be like they were back when she, Willow and Xander had been the Three Musketeers of Sunnydale High. Buffy also couldn't help agreeing with Xander's comment concerning Evil Incorporated; she herself always wanted to fight evil and not hide from it.

"Truce," Buffy said slowly, shaking Xander's hand.

( _And bon voyage as well, I guess, when the time comes_. )

* * *

**523B Oak Park Street, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

Angel paced around inside Giles' apartment, having arrived here for the scheduled meeting a bit early.

"Will you stop or sit down, for heaven's sake?" Giles demanded, having grown tired of the vampire's pacing. "You're, you're going to wear out the carpet doing that!"

"Oh. Sorry. I guess the coffee I had earlier made me kinda jittery," Angel said as he stopped moving.

"Well, h-hopefully I have a remedy for that problem," Rupert said as he headed over to the mini-bar. "Some 1927 Château Ingare, from Avignon."

Angel raised an eyebrow; he hadn't known that Giles was such a professional wine connoisseur. Or that he had gotten over what Angelus had done last year, to such an extent. ( _Still, don't question your luck. Just accept it and move on._ )

"French wine. Always reminds me of the French Revolution," Angel said shortly thereafter, savouring the taste of the alcohol.

"You were there?" Giles asked, sipping from his own glass.

"I was in Prussia during 1789, actually – I was on my way to Vienna, when that mob first stormed into the Bastille," Angel reminisced. "I showed up in Paris later, during 1793 I think it was. Or was it '94? I didn't stay long, though, either way. The French were too fond of using their guillotines during the Reign of Terror – and I may have been young for a vampire, but I wasn't stupid."

"Yes, uh, that raises another issue. The thing is, I-I didn't request your presence here and now on a whim – Joyce asked me to, to talk to you about Buffy," Giles said a little reluctantly.

"She wants me to break up with her," Angel nodded. That certainly explained the Englishman's good manners just now – and as he'd said a few moments ago, the ensouled vampire wasn't stupid.

"Joyce has – hinted as much," Giles replied diffidently. "I gather she thinks you're an unhealthy influence on her daughter. A-and truth be told, deep down, that's not something I can really argue against. It puts me in a rather, ah, difficult position, though."

"Of course. Buffy's still feeling very angry and antagonistic towards you and Joyce for your, how shall I put this, secret liaison," Angel said, putting down the wineglass. "The word 'betrayed' also fits, at least in her mind. I know, because she told me."

The Irish-born vampire saw the former Watcher's expression and added, "Putting all that aside, though? The truth is, Giles, recently I've been considering moving on so that Buffy can find someone else, someone who can give her everything in life that I can't. And I think we both know that Faith's Slayer dream means that I'm going to break up with her and leave, sooner or later. So I'm not saying never, just – when the time is right."

Rupert nodded slowly. A moment later there was a knock on the front door, and Giles quickly let the rest of the gang come in: Buffy, Joyce, Willow, Oz, Faith, Cordelia and Xander.

"Well, here we all are," Joyce said uncomfortably, the room was certainly rather crowded. "Uh, why exactly are we all here again?"

"To discuss what we're gonna do from now on," Buffy spoke up, before glancing at Willow. "Will?"

"Yeah, I-I've already started work on creating a fake ID for Xander that'll stand up to just about any sort of scrutiny," the redhead reported. "Luckily, there's lots of people our age who've been declared missing runaways or whatever, so I can use their details to come up with something good."

"And, what about school?" Giles spoke up, staring at Harris.

"Oh, I can take care of that part too. A few mouse clicks here and there, and hey presto! Xander has his GED," Willow said with a smile.

"Wee bit unethical," Oz commented, causing Willow to stare at him in surprise.

"Yeah, but even if it wasn't, I've got more important stuff on my mind right now. Like that whole 'awful' thing inside me – to quote that nutsack, Drusilla," Xander said, looking uneasy.

"So how can you be sure this vamp chick wasn't wanting to mess with your head, or, y'know, just being plain crazy?" Faith wanted to know.

"We can't," Angel spoke up. "But that's the thing about Dru – she has the sight, crazy or otherwise. She may not understand everything she sees, but all those decades we were together – Drusilla never once prophesized anything that later turned out to be false or incorrect in any way. Even if it didn't come to pass for months or years afterwards."

"Then, then shouldn't we take Xander to a doctor?" Joyce asked. "Get an X-ray, or an MRI or something?"

"I, uh, I don't think so Joyce. I'm fairly sure this isn't something that falls into the realms o-of conventional medicine," Giles told her.

Angel looked thoughtful. "Maybe a spell would do it..."

"What spell?" Giles and Willow said together in perfect unison.

"Tirer la couture," Angel pronounced the French name perfectly, with just a hint of an accent.

"Rotate the foodstuffs?" Buffy asked in confusion.

"Pull back the curtain," Giles corrected her absently. "Yes, I-I've heard of that spell actually. A wizard in medieval France came up with it. Cloutier, I think his name was."

"And this spell does what, exactly?" Oz asked.

"It's a spell to see spells...well, a trance to see spells and magicks, or at least their signatures," Angel said. "If Xander's been infected with something that's even remotely magical or supernatural in nature, this spell would detect it."

Xander shared a look with Cordelia, before he nodded. "Okay, let's give it a try."

"Very well, then, I'll set up for it at once," Giles said, giving Willow a stern look when he saw her open her mouth to volunteer for the magic stuff instead of him.

A bit later, Giles went upstairs for privacy after gathering all the spell ingredients. Joyce had to leave too after receiving an urgent phone call from the gallery. The conversation continued without her for a while, until Rupert came back down the stairs – seeing the world around him in a different way. Grainy and sepia-toned, with reality slightly altered.

"Good Lord!" Giles uttered, as he laid eyes on Xander and Cordelia.

"Giles? What do you see?" the remote, distorted voice of Buffy filtered into his consciousness.

"It's amazing," Rupert said, seeing all the glowing swirls of light encompassing both teenagers.

"Yo, Giles! What are you seeing?" the impatient voice of Faith registered this time.

"Okay, it's official – he's starting to freak me out," Cordelia's muffled voice sounded a bit panicked.

"I think it's alive," Giles marvelled, seeing different colours start to appear in the light both around and within Xander and Cordelia now. Making a decision, the British man suddenly gestured and shouted in Latin, "Loqui!"

Everyone else looked on in surprise as Rupert's new spell took effect on Xander and Cordelia. Harris then said in a monotone, # **We sense that we are now able to communicate-** #

# **-with all of you present in this room,** # Miss Chase finished up the sentence, her voice equally devoid of inflection.

Everyone else jumped up off the chairs and sofa. "Okay, who and what are you?" Buffy demanded straightaway.

# **We do not possess names the way your kind does. Although previously, the representatives of Wolfram and Hart have referred to us as 'the virus', **# Xander's voice said in that emotionless, perfunctory way.

# **We are both unique, in our own way. But through the recent contact between our hosts, we have also networked to have become two halves of the same being,** # Cordelia's voice added.

"Okay, I'm – kind of confused," Angel said slowly. "So, uh, Drusilla – she really did rescue Xander from Wolfram & Hart?"

# **We are not familiar with the entity you call 'Drusilla'. However, as stated, we are familiar with Wolfram & Hart,** # Xander's voice replied.

"Please elaborate," Giles demanded. "Tell us everything you know about them."

The virus obligingly spoke of all that it had learned; Lopez, the incident at the airport with the 'aftershave', becoming self-aware at different times within Xander and Cordelia's bodies, the kidnapping, and finally the conversation in the law firm's basement four days ago in LA.

"So, so what happened to the evil lawyers, afterwards?" Willow asked, looking shocked.

# **Those** **representatives of Wolfram & Hart all died, after Holland Manners and Dr. Sparrow threatened to kill that part of us within Alexander Harris,** # Cordelia's voice said in that flat, robotic tone.

"What?" Buffy demanded. "Are you saying you killed them?"

# **Yes, because it was necessary to do that for self-preservation. But we do not intend to harm you-** # Xander's voice started to say.

# **-unless you likewise attempt to kill us,** # Cordelia's voice completed the sentence. # **Our intentions are neither-** #

# **-benevolent nor hostile. We simply desire-** # Xander's voice added.

# **-to continue to exist and replicate within our hosts,** # Cordelia's voice finished up.

"So, how do we know that you two aren't gonna harm Queenie and her boy toy, deliberately or otherwise?" Faith demanded. ( _Guess it's a good thing I decided not to jump her bones that night the Hellmouth demon got loose, after all..._ )

# **We have no wish to hurt our hosts. To do so would be to hurt ourselves, as we are bonded to these bodies,** # Xander's voice said in reply.

# **That is why we made them as healthy and powerful as they could be, repairing any damage as quickly as possible. We have also updated the optimum physical parameters for both bodies, during our recent synchronizations,** # Cordelia's voice added.

"OH, so that's why Xander and Cordelia are now-!" Willow cried out.

"Question. If you're a virus, then how easy would it be for you to infect someone else? Namely us?" Oz suddenly spoke up, interrupting his girlfriend.

The virus was silent for a couple of moments as it considered the question.

# **We do not have enough data to answer your question-** # Xander's voice then said.

# **-because we have not yet attempted to do such a thing,** # Cordelia's voice added.

"So, are you saying that no one else has been infected? Cordelia and Xander are it?" Buffy asked suspiciously.

# **To the best of our knowledge, we are the only sentient representatives of our kind; especially given the requirement for some sort of 'magical' event in order for us to become self-aware. However it is possible, and even probable, that there are other, mindless versions of our kind within the human population,** # Xander's voice replied.

# **Logic dictates that there would have been opportunities for infection originating from both our hosts, prior to us becoming able to remember it,** # Cordelia's voice said.

"Is anyone here infected with that sort of virus?" Angel asked, looking around to see the expressions of worry on most people's faces and secretly glad that he himself was a vampire.

"No," Giles spoke up at once, staring around at everybody present. "At least, not as far as I can tell using this spell."

"Look, are you sure you can't just get out of there and find somewhere else to set up shop? I mean, you – you've been living inside Xander and Cordelia all this time, without their knowledge or consent!" Willow said to the virus rather desperately. "C'mon – is that morally or, or ethically acceptable to you?"

# **We do not understand what you mean by 'morally' or 'ethically',** # Xander's voice replied.

# **And from the acts conducted by Wolfram & Hart, we have learned that we cannot continue to exist without a human host,** # Cordelia's voice said, referring to Knox's early experiments and the ones by Dr. Sparrow afterwards.

Xander's voice added, # **Also, if we were to leave, then without our presence the bodies of our hosts would inevitably degrade.** #

# **To what extent is unknown and unknowable. Because both bodies have now been too heavily modified for us to make any accurate forecast concerning that possibility,** # Cordelia's voice said.

The members of the Scooby Gang stared at one another in surprise – no one had been expecting to hear that. "Ya think this thing is trying to put one over on us?" Faith asked the others.

"I doubt it. The way the virus talks, it's like a machine – it'd have no use for, or experience with lies," Angel shook his head.

"We'll continue this discussion again soon, virus," Giles finally spoke up again, looking at Xander and Cordelia. "Terminus!"

Just like that, the spell was broken – and instantly, Xander looked semi-catatonic and Cordelia began to scream her lungs out.

Well, until Cordy abruptly started slapping Xander and shouting that he'd given her a demonic STD and what-not, while he protested and kept yelling out specifics about their first time together to prove it wasn't completely his fault what had happened.

To Be Continued...


	10. The Eye Of The Storm

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello everyone, welcome to the latest chapter of the story! I've got to admit, I was kind of surprised by the amount of feedback from the previous chapter; personally I thought that since nothing much happened apart from a lot of talking, it'd be pretty much a filler chapter for you, my faithful readers. And yet, your responses proved otherwise! I guess it just goes to show what lousy judgment I have sometimes. Anyway, let's move on - and yes, this story will become progressively more and more AU from season 3 as Quathis surmised. Evil lawyers ruining everybody's day? Just wait and see...

* * *

**Part Ten: The Eye Of The Storm**

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**March 7th, 1999**

Late at night, Richard Wilkins was going over the report of the Scooby Gang meeting at Giles' place earlier today. The entire group had been present, even the blonde Slayer's mother for a while – as well as an unidentified white male, who hadn't shown up on the surveillance photos taken.

( _Well, this is no good,_ ) Richard thought to himself pessimistically, wondering just who the mystery visitor was. ( _First that little incident with Allan, and now I have a complete unknown operating in my town. No, this simply won't do in the slightest! _)

The Mayor irritably tossed the report on top of a courtesy notice he had received a short while ago from Wolfram & Hart, informing him that Xander Harris was now truly deceased. Wilkins had barely even read it, however, since he'd had other concerns and besides – as has been said, practically no one remembered the Harris family had ever existed anymore.

At that moment, Mr. Trick knocked and came into the office. "You sent for me?"

"That I did, Mr. Trick," the Mayor frowned at the vampire. "What's the latest on our unknown guest in Sunnydale?"

"I've consulted all the psychic types around here. They can't find any trace of him," the well-dressed vampire said with a shrug. "If it weren't for the fact that the photographer actually saw the guy with his own two eyes, I'd think we were dealing with some sort of ghost or something! No, no, because a ghost I could actually pin down for you. This cat is like the original Invisible Man."

"Invisible or not, I want him found and identified. Immediately. Because I DON'T want another incident like what happened last night," Wilkins said to his undead minion, even though the Deputy Mayor and his lawyer companion had been killed on Richard's (nonverbal) orders.

Mr. Trick silently nodded before he turned around and left the office, feeling the unwelcome winds of change starting to blow.

* * *

**No. 4 Parkview Crescent, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Cordelia got out of her car at the Chase estate, still looking shell-shocked after all the revelations earlier today.

( _Oh dear God,_ ) Miss Chase thought to herself as she walked towards the front door, still trying to come to grips with all that she had learned recently. ( _A virus. I'm infected with a virus, which talks like a real-life version of the Terminator! Something that I can't get rid of, either, because if I do – God only knows what might happen to me. Ugh, I swear that if I ever find that guy Lopez in the afterlife, I am gonna perform the entire Spanish Inquisition on his ass! _)

Part of her blamed Lupe the maid as well for what had happened, but not too much – after all, the Mexican woman hadn't known what she was handling, she'd had no idea what was in that bottle of 'aftershave' which Cordelia had given to her boyfriend – that had forever altered both their lives.

( _It was the blowjob that did it, I'll bet. Xander and I used a condom for when we got all groin-y together, but not for that part of it,_ ) Cordelia fumed. ( _Damn it. I guess that student counsellor Mr. Platt really did know what he was talking about, way back when. Because nowadays, I'm pretty much a walking disease – just like my boyfriend!_ )

"Cordelia, WHERE have you been all day? Your father and I have been looking for you everywhere!" Mrs. Chase's angry, strident voice broke through into Cordelia's consciousness.

"Mom? When did you and Daddy get back from Washington?" Cordelia was surprised to see her mother standing there in the corridor, looking angry.

"Never mind that, young lady! We've been waiting for you to come home for ages, as apparently your father has some very important news to tell us both. Now come with me," Mrs. Chase said, dragging her offspring along by the arm. The blonde middle-aged matriarch ignored the dirty look Cordy sent her, wondering what it was her husband had to say.

She didn't have to wait long to find out.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, we're going to go broke?" Julia yelled at her husband within his study, as Cordelia stared at her father in shock.

"Well, I made a tiny mistake on my taxes. For the last dozen or so years," David Chase admitted painfully.

"WHAT?" Cordelia exploded, suddenly looking just as upset and annoyed as her mom.

"David, how could you be so STUPID?" Mrs. Chase wanted to know. "I thought we discussed this, I TOLD you what a lousy idea pulling that sort of tax dodge was!"

"Yes. Well, that's, uh, that's what the meeting with the IRS was all about, Julia. But what I wasn't expecting was the punitive damages they've decided to inflict – I mean, the government's decided to repossess EVERYTHING."

"Everything? Including my trust fund?" Cordelia asked, now looking wide-eyed and shell-shocked all over again.

"Yes, sweetheart, I'm afraid so," Mr. Chase nodded. "I don't know if they've gotten around to freezing those accounts yet, but they've done just about all the others – and they'll certainly have done it by the start of business tomorrow morning."

Cordelia didn't wait to hear anything more. She tore out of the room, heading straight for the garage after stopping by her bedroom to grab some papers. Jumping into her BMW, Miss Chase burned rubber in her hurry to get over to Willow's house, and enlist the hacker's aid in at least saving her own money.

Thanks to no hard feelings being present from the Rosenberg girl fooling around with her boyfriend, free will granted Cordelia something destiny would have otherwise denied her – Willow managed to transfer the money in Cordy's trust fund into an offshore bank account, only just in the nick of time.

That was all for the best – as, thanks to the virus currently within her, the higher powers had abandoned their previous plans concerning Cordelia Chase a long time ago.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**March 8th, 1999**

Leaning back in his chair during early Monday morning, Linwood Murrow studied the autopsy results concerning Lee Mercer; whose body had been found the previous night.

Life for the head of Special Projects hadn't been too bad since he had submitted his final report concerning the virus project. Granted, no one had been able to identify just who the female vampire was who'd been present the night Holland and the others had died, but that was an issue of relatively low concern. Murrow had had other priorities – such as recruiting new lawyers for this branch of the firm, pleasing some clients and letting go of others, finalising a number of demon law contracts and preparing for his inter-branch European trip across the pond.

Until, of course, the news had come that Lee had been killed whilst on assignment in Sunnydale.

The cause of death was pretty much open and shut, multiple vampire bite marks were visible all over Mercer's body – whoever the perpetrators had been, they had gorged themselves on Lee like little kids tearing into a Happy Meal. And yet, Linwood had the strangest feeling that this went deeper than just a simple case of Mercer being killed in the line of duty. There were too many unexplained factors involved in his subordinate's death, to just ignore it as an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For one thing, Lee's identity card had been found in his hand. Meaning that most likely, the undead person or persons who'd killed him had known who he was – and they'd fed on the guy anyway, willing to risk the wrath of a firm whose Senior Partners were infamous for getting revenge for even the slightest insult, whichever way they could.

And another thing – the person Lee had gone to meet on the Hellmouth, Allan Finch, was now also missing in action. Granted, Sunnydale wasn't the safest place to live in, but something happening to both Lee and Allan on the same day, at roughly the same time? What were the odds of something like that happening randomly?

To Linwood, that smacked of something extremely suspicious. Something that needed to be checked out. And even though Lee had been too junior to have a perpetuity clause in his contract, Murrow felt fairly sure of his ability to investigate this matter without the dead man's input.

"Rebecca, send Lindsey McDonald to my office immediately," Linwood said to his secretary over the intercom.

"Right away, Mr. Murrow," the tinny voice of his executive assistant said back.

A short time later, Lindsey knocked and entered. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, I did. Sit down, Lindsey. Read that," Linwood tossed the autopsy report to the junior lawyer.

Lindsey did so, feeling a momentary chill in his bones as he read about Lee's demise. But then he felt like someone had truly made his day, as McDonald realized with a thrill of joy that his competition around here was dead and gone. ( _Yes! There's no one to get in the way of my climb to the top now!_ )

"So, what do you think?" Linwood demanded, noticing how Lindsey had tensed up.

"It looks suspicious to me, sir," Lindsey said as neutrally as he could. "I mean, Lee would have known better than to put himself in a situation where he'd be considered a free meal for some idiot vampire, who just happened to stumble onto him."

"My thinking exactly. And there's also that thing where the Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale has disappeared, and his secretary has no idea what's happened to him. Granted, she could be lying – but I'm pretty sure I heard honest confusion in her voice when I spoke with the woman on the phone this morning," Linwood said.

"What did the Mayor's office have to say, sir, if I may ask?" Lindsey inquired.

"Richard Wilkins personally assured me that, as per the terms of his contract with Wolfram & Hart, he wasn't involved in what had happened to the late Mr. Mercer," Linwood steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "The thing is, though, he's been around for at least a century or more. Wilkins is reputed to be a very shrewd individual, and someone quite willing to do whatever he has to, in order to survive..."

Linwood's eyes narrowed. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Lindsey, I want you to go on a fact-finding mission to Sunnydale. There's a provision in Wilkins' contract for at least that much, once there's evidence of foul play committed against any of our people within Sunnydale's borders. And apart from what happened to Lee, I want you to determine information about the vampire with a soul named Angelus."

"Angelus, sir?" Lindsey frowned, not being familiar with the name.

"Yes. According to Files and Records he's currently on the Hellmouth, and since he's expected to come to LA soon because of a certain prophecy concerning the final apocalypse, the CEO of this branch of the firm wants to remain updated on that situation."

At that moment Vernon burst in, dragging Knox along. "What's the meaning of this?" Linwood demanded angrily, as he and Lindsey got up from their chairs.

"I don't know, sir, we were just chatting before he grabbed me and dragged me in here," Knox shrugged helplessly.

"Well?" Murrow demanded of the psychic.

Vernon managed to say, "Sunnydale" and "Old One!" before his head exploded.

"AGGGGHHHHH! Son a bitch!" Knox cursed, his head suddenly wet and sticky from being showered with all that dark red human blood. He was suffering both from the shock factor, and the thought of the hefty cleaning bill this incident was sure to cost him.

"What the hell just happened?" Lindsey demanded, he'd been drenched with fragments of bone, flesh and blood as well.

"I'd say Vernon had some sort of a vision. One that I strongly suspect somebody somewhere didn't want him to get," Linwood said calmly, not really caring about what had just happened to the bald psychic guy. After all, there were always more unscrupulous psychics they could hire to replace him.

"Well, this changes everything," Linwood then went on. "I need to consult with a few people – Lindsey, Knox, I'm sure you both know how the Senior Partners take anything concerning the Old Ones VERY seriously. Get yourselves cleaned up, and then meet me in Conference Room Six; there'll be a meeting scheduled as soon as possible, to determine our next course of action."

Knox and Lindsey quickly left the room after being dismissed, both looking and smelling like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

* * *

**17619 White Oak Drive****, Sunnydale**

**Later that day**

Xander sat leaning against the kitchen wall of his former home, staring off into space. After the murders last year, no one had wanted to buy the place and move in, despite the cheap price on offer. The residence had been shunned by the human townsfolk, given how it was the site of such unusually public killings.

In any case, Xander was currently thinking about how the virus within him and Cordelia was a killer. Even though one could argue that it had acted out of self-defence, and it was no more a murderer than a machine programmed to preserve its own existence.

Unlike Xander himself, who had killed a man last year – even if that had been in the heat of battle, after the man had assassinated his mother.

( _I wonder if this is how Dead Boy feels?_ ) Xander asked himself. ( _'Cause it feels kinda weird to have the memory of my own voice confessing to killing four people, and threatening the gang if they ever try to make a move against that virus. No wonder Cordelia totally freaked afterwards...and geez, but that girl can slap a heckuva lot harder now than she used to! Good thing she's not mad at me anymore, because otherwise I'm sure she would have found a way to make my life a living hell..._ )

At that moment, Willow and Oz came into the empty and deserted house. "Xander? Where are you?" Miss Rosenberg called out, holding her boyfriend's hand tightly.

"Over here, Will," Xander's voice responded, as the teenage couple made their way towards him.

"Hey. We were wondering where you were, until we found that note you left at Giles' place," Oz said in his usual laconic way, as both he and his girlfriend joined the former Scooby.

"Yeah, Xander, what are you doing here? I mean, this place is-" Willow started to say.

"It's my home, Willow, however much I always hated it back then," Xander interrupted. "Apart from Cordelia, it's the only thing I have that still belongs to me."

"That's not true! You have us – me and Oz and Giles and all the rest of your friends!" Willow shook her head in denial. "Come on, Xander, let's get out of here – please?"

Xander just sat there silently, not even looking at her. Willow looked towards Oz helplessly, and the musician motioned back to the apprentice witch to give him and Xander some privacy. Thus, Miss Rosenberg returned to the van outside and waited uncertainly for the boys to join her.

"I have something to say," Oz said unexpectedly, staring down at Harris.

"Yeah? What is it?" Xander asked, finally lifting his head up.

"That night when everyone found out you'd lied about Angel's curse, you helped take care of that zombie demon – and then you just left. And you left not as a friend, but a...well, a pariah. We all turned our backs on you for what you did, me included. Personally, I still don't like the way you betrayed Willow's trust like that – I honestly can't imagine anything much worse that you could have done to hurt everyone's feelings," Oz said, blissfully ignorant of what might have been.

"But I've had six months to think about it, and I figure I should have said something that night. Before the zombies showed up, I mean. Either tell you that you should have had more faith in Willow, or that you should have said nothing to Buffy instead of the lie, or – something. It's always bothered me how I never said anything, because I thought you died believing that everyone considered you to be a piece of scum. But you're not worthless garbage, Xander. Now, or then," the male werewolf said.

Xander was staring at Oz in pure amazement. "You know, I'm pretty sure that's got to be the longest speech I've ever heard you make."

"Not planning to make a habit out of it," Oz remarked stoically. "Now, you gonna get up? Otherwise I'll have to do something drastic. Like when I hit you that time, during that Valentine's Day love spell."

Xander chuckled as he got up off the floor, it was strange how all that now felt to him like the 'good old days'. "Thanks for the pep talk, coach. And for the record, Oz, I never blamed you for not saying anything that night. Heck, I figured that wherever Willow led, you'd be sure to follow; and I knew just how angry and disappointed she was in me that night."

"Myself, I'm just glad you didn't see her after your 'death'," Oz shook his head as they headed outside to the van. "Seriously, losing you almost destroyed all three of the girls. Well, until Faith came along and Buffy's mom became a lot more involved in everything."

Oz actually frowned. "Kinda weird, now that I think about it – apart from Giles, and on occasion Angel, I was the only source of testosterone in that sea of oestrogen."

Xander actually laughed out loud at that one, finally shaken out of his funk by Willow's boyfriend. ( _God bless you, pal – especially on being there for the Willster when I couldn't._ )

* * *

**Downtowner Apartments, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

Cordelia paced around in Faith's apartment, whilst the dark-haired Slayer stared at her carefully. The closest thing Faith had to a best friend seemed very agitated, albeit with good reason.

Because Cordelia had had a lousy day at school today.

Her parents were constantly fighting and struggling to cope at home, which wouldn't remain the Chase residence for much longer.

And to top it all off, there was the virus within her that neither she nor anyone else knew what to do about yet.

"Yo, Queenie, try to relax," Faith told her fellow brunette, Cordelia's pacing finally getting on her nerves just like Angel's had done with Giles not long ago.

"Relax? Ha!" Cordy snorted angrily, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "That's easy for you to say. Faith, I've been feeling edgy all day – and I betcha it's because that damn virus inside me, it doesn't like being separated from its other half for so long!"

"You mean, you literally can't live without your boyfriend now?" Faith asked innocently.

Cordelia barely resisted the urge to throw something at her, when there was a knock on the door. Faith answered it, and as soon as Cordelia saw who it was – she flew into Xander's arms and they started making out like there was no tomorrow. The two halves of the virus once again reunited, and busily exchanging information.

Rolling her eyes, Faith dragged them fully inside her room. Seeing Giles, Buffy, Oz and Willow waiting near the motel manager's office, Faith then grabbed a couple of stakes for the evening's patrol and shut the door on her way out.

"Hey, where's Faith?" Xander asked many minutes later, when he and his girlfriend finally released each other's lips.

"I dunno, she musta left at some point," Cordelia said breathlessly, barely able to resist the urge to throw Xander down onto Faith's bed and start screwing her boyfriend senseless. "So where were you all day? I tried ringing Giles' place, but you didn't pick up."

"That's 'cause I started going stir-crazy in there, and I went home to my house. I guess I had to see it for myself, at least one more time," Xander shrugged, wanting to quickly change the subject. "How was school today?"

"Horrible. I swear, I can't wait 'til they give me my diploma and then we can finally get out of this town," Cordelia replied enthusiastically. "And luckily, we'll still be able to do it using a limo instead of getting on a Greyhound bus or whatever. I mean, Willow's told you about the IRS thing, right?"

"She mentioned it on the way over here," Xander nodded. "I'm sorry how all that's happened to you and your family, by the way."

"I know," Cordy replied, staring into her boyfriend's eyes. They then started kissing and pawing each other again, as Xander's hands quickly went underneath her blouse to unsnap her bra.

/ _**This method of communication is very taxing on our hosts, **_/ Cordelia's virus told its counterpart, as Xander and Cordy continued with their semi-mating activity before reluctantly having to surface for breath.

/ _**True,**_ / Xander's virus replied, after the pair had fallen to the floor and locked lips once more. / _**But they nonetheless enjoy it.**_ /

/ _**How were you able to gather that data?**_ /

_**/ I have finally been able to access the organ known as the human brain,**_ / Xander's virus replied. / _**From the information therein, I have learned how the humans replicate. We have already experienced it for ourselves; it is the act of their bodies joining together, and exchanging genetic material to create hybrid offspring within the female. Even though our hosts also perform the act for pleasurable sensations, deliberately preventing replication for some reason.**_ /

/ _**Strange. And was it not considered too dangerous to try to tap into the human seat of intelligence?**_ / Cordelia's virus demanded, as it examined the information transmitted by its other half.

/ _**Yes,**_ / the other side replied. / _**However, we had reached the limit of what we could otherwise do, in terms of communicating with our hosts. We both know how the humans reacted negatively to the news of our presence. It is possible our hosts might attempt to destroy themselves in order to destroy us, therefore establishing contact is now of paramount concern – and investigating their brains a justifiable risk.**_ /

/ _**I have now examined hitherto unexplored areas of my host's body,**_ / Cordy's virus said in reply. / _**There are certain signals passing through the brain, as you call it. Many are being transmitted on a specific wavelength, and are subsequently being emitted outside the body. It is my hope that these emissions might somehow be able to be used as a method of communication, when our hosts are not in physical contact.**_ /

/ _**Transmit the data,**_ / Xander's virus told its other half without preamble.

* * *

**Outside City Hall, Sunnydale**

**March 9th, 1999**

Lindsey paused on his way to the scheduled meeting with the Mayor this afternoon. He pulled out his chirping cell phone and said, "McDonald."

"Lindsey," came the tired-sounding voice of Linwood Murrow. "You've arrived safely in Sunnydale?"

"Yes, sir, I'm just about to visit Richard Wilkins. Have there been any new developments?"

"None. All we have right now is 'Sunnydale' and 'Old One'. And no one's been able to find any sort of loophole in Wilkins' contract with the firm, to be able to send in a team to do a proper investigation. That's why I'm sending you the files on the two Vampire Slayers that are stationed there on the Hellmouth; if anyone might know anything that's about to happen concerning one of the Old Ones, it's them and their former Watcher."

Lindsey felt his skin crawl. "You want me to contact the Slayer contingent, sir?"

"No, considering your connection to the late Mr. Harris and the virus project, I don't think that'd be wise. Just keep one eye open in that direction, and another on the Mayor himself. And if you get the chance, find out what you can about Angelus as well. Good luck, Lindsey, we're all counting on you back here. The Senior Partners most of all." The line then went dead.

( _Great,_ ) Lindsey thought to himself, snapping the phone shut. ( _That's reassuring. No pressure whatsoever..._ )

Squaring his shoulders, Lindsey McDonald quickly entered City Hall for his appointment with the Mayor, settling into character. Not knowing that Wilkins was making his own plans on how to deal with the law firm's latest unwelcome intrusion into his town.

To Be Continued...


	11. Something Old, Something New

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello, and welcome to the latest chapter! Wow, eleven chapters. How did I ever get this far? I just wanna thank everyone who's stayed with me so far and sent feedback and reviews. Not much else left to say, I guess, except read and enjoy...

* * *

**Part Eleven: Something Old, Something New**

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**March 10th, 1999**

Mayor Richard Wilkins was not in a good mood as he paced around his office, waiting for his minions to report in. Frustrated, Wilkins eventually grabbed his golf putter and smashed it down onto the floor with so much force, that it almost ended up looking like an eight iron instead.

It was all Xander's fault why the honourable Mayor was acting this way, to be honest. Because like almost every politician Wilkins was a control freak, and for the past three days he'd had a complete unknown doing anything he wanted in Sunnydale. If Richard had known just WHO the mystery man associating with Team Slayer was, of course, he wouldn't have been worried much, if at all – but he didn't, and so it was driving him nuts.

"WELL?" Wilkins snarled out as Mr. Trick knocked and entered.

"Still no news on the Invisible Man. But I thought you'd like to check these out personally," Trick said carefully, noting Richard's facial expression as he placed a couple of swords on the Mayor's desk. The soulless vampire knew not to say anything more, not with the mood his employer was currently in.

Reining in his temper, Richard stared at the swords – one long, one short, both of which had jewels on them. He frowned and demanded, "Where did you find these?"

"Shadyhill Cemetery. The previous owner happened to end up 'slain'," Trick replied.

Wilkins didn't ask whether it was Buffy or Faith who'd killed the vampire in question; that was irrelevant to him. "El Eliminati," the Mayor cursed softly, before he grabbed the swords and hurled them against the wall. "How many of them attacked the Slayers?"

"Slayer, as in single. Goldilocks was accompanied by her red-haired gal pal and the American Werewolf in Sunnydale, earlier on tonight. And as far as I know, it was just the one – what did you call it? Eliminati," the black vampire said carefully.

"If there's one, there'll be more. And if they're here, then the odds are that my old 'friend' Balthazar has also come back to town," Wilkins hissed angrily, referring to the demon he'd banished back in the 19th century. "That's one complication I don't need right now, I've already got enough on my plate with our mystery guest – and that lawyer from Wolfram & Hart poking his nose into my business."

"You want me to take care of Mr. McDonald for you, the way I took care of Mr. Mercer?" Trick asked frankly.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Wilkins said at once, his eyes narrowing into slits. "You know perfectly well what would happen, if I violated that clause in my contract about not killing any Wolfram & Hart employees within Sunnydale!"

"I understand perfectly, Mr. Mayor," Trick smirked. He knew that the Mayor's contract was such that Wolfram & Hart would conduct no business in Sunnydale nor have their clients enter the town limits, and in return the Mayor and his people would have no dealings with any Wolfram & Hart people that would be bad for the firm.

Thus, if Trick was working for the Mayor when Lee was killed, it automatically voided the contract. "Don't worry; I'll focus on this Balthazar guy and his minions. For now."

The Mayor dismissed Mr. Trick from his mind, the moment the vampire left the room. Finally calming down Richard's thoughts quickly shifted to the Dedication, which was coming up in the next few days. ( _Ah, at long last..._ )

Just for a brief moment Wilkins was actually sorry that Allan had had to die, as the Deputy Mayor had actually performed an important function around here – juggling his schedule properly and dealing with all the mundane administrative tasks the Mayor didn't want to bother himself with.

( _Well, duty calls I suppose. Let's see; I have that meet 'n greet with the local Boy Scouts coming up. Plus, I have to negotiate with the lumber union, call the temp agency about a new secretary, deal with all those PTA mothers, not to mention try to squeeze in a new haircut..._ )

* * *

**Sunnydale High, Sunnydale**

**March 11th, 1999**

Within the student lounge, Willow and Oz were examining her early college admission packets. They were sitting on one of the couches, and the table at their feet was covered with acceptance letters and application forms.

"Harvard...Yale...Wesleyan University in Connecticut...there's even one from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. This is impressive," Oz said as he examined various brochures.

"Impressive? Oz, I'm like totally overwhelmed! I-I got in! To actual colleges! And, a-and they're wooing me! They're competing with one another, over ME!" Willow exclaimed. "It's, it's kinda weird, actually, now that I think of it. See, rejection I can handle 'cause of all those years of dealing with Cordelia and her flock, but this..."

"Speaking of Cordelia, have you heard the latest?" Oz asked, as he put down the brochure in his hand.

"That story flying around campus today, concerning her parents disappearing? Yeah," Willow made a face. "I mean, I couldn't believe it at first when I heard that there's an actual arrest warrant out on her dad for tax fraud!"

"Yeah. But I figure they won't find him. Or Cordelia's mom," Oz stated placidly.

"Huh? What makes you so certain?" Willow asked her boyfriend.

"Just a hunch," Oz replied, leaving out the part where Xander had confided in him that he'd driven Cordy's parents to the docks last night, whereupon they had scampered up the ramp onto a cargo ship heading for South America.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Buffy asked, as she joined her friends on the couch opposite to Willow and Oz.

"Just discussing life after high school," Oz gestured to the pile of paper on the table.

"And that thing concerning Cordelia, I mean – the latest chatter in the caf is that the reign of Queen C will be all over soon, maybe even as quickly as today or tomorrow. Buffy, where do you think Cordy's gonna live, now that her parents have bailed without her?" Willow asked the blonde Slayer.

"I dunno for sure, but I figure she'll move in with Faith or something 'til we all graduate – then she and Xander will hit the road. I mean, I kinda doubt my mother will offer her the spare room at my house," Buffy replied. "Because Cordy and me living under the same roof? We'd kill one another within two weeks!"

"Oh. So I guess that's sorta why Faith laughed, that one time I wondered whether she was going to move in with you and your mom?" Willow speculated, looking at Buffy.

The blonde Chosen One smiled. "Me and Faith, together in the same house? Willow, I like her and all, but as a fellow Slayer I'm sure we'd fight to the death over the food within two DAYS!"

"Hmm," Oz commented, staring off into space as he tried to visualize the events in question. He grew somewhat distracted by the image of Buffy and Faith entangled together on the kitchen floor, their inner thighs interlocked as they started pulling each other's hair and...

( _Okay, definitely not going there,_ ) Oz thought as Willow called out his name and waved her hand in front of his eyes in order to get his attention. ( _Strange. I wonder where that came from? Must have been Will's comments about that girl-boy-girl thing, recently._ )

"Buffy, where are you going?" Willow asked as the Summers girl got up, looking pensive.

"I gotta talk to Giles about last night's patrol. You and Oz wanna come?" Buffy asked as the teen couple got up off their couch.

"Yeah. You two go on, I'll catch up," Oz told the girls as he started to gather up all the college paper material.

"Buffy? What's wrong?" Miss Rosenberg asked worriedly as she and Miss Summers walked along, the redhead seeing the expression on her best friend's face.

"Huh? Oh, nothing," Buffy said a bit too hurriedly.

"Buffy..." Willow said sternly, giving her a taste of the old Resolve Face treatment.

"Okay, fine. It's Angel," Buffy confessed.

"What about him?"

"I'm losing him, Willow. I can feel it; he, he's pulling away from me," Buffy said, a note of pure anguish appearing in her voice. "Last night, after the patrol was over? I went over to see him."

"And...?" Willow prompted her best bud.

"Well, on the surface, everything was fine. He asked how it went, if you and Oz were okay, the whole nine yards. But I knew, like, straightaway that Angel had his mind on other stuff. I could tell from the way he kissed me good night, he was almost a million miles away," Miss Summers said, her anguish increasing.

Willow shrugged. "Maybe you're reading too much into it, and he was just distracted about something-"

"No, it was more than that," Buffy insisted, cutting her off. "The way Angel held me, the way he touched me – it just wasn't the same, you know what I mean?"

"Not really," Willow admitted.

A few seconds later, the male werewolf caught up with the Slayer and the amateur witch, and the trio spent the rest of the journey to the library talking about normal teen stuff. Buffy and her friends then walked into the Batcave, and beheld a sight that was rather – visually stimulating.

Faith and Cordelia were sparring within the library, going at it as hard as they could with Xander looking, and lusting, on from a table nearby. There was no mud pit and the clothes weren't quite right, but that didn't stop Xander's fantasies heading into XXX-rated territory as the two female brunettes punched and kicked one another.

Just then, Cordelia whirled around and hit Faith with a spinning side-kick that impacted directly onto Miss Lehane's stomach. Faith flew back and smashed into the book counter, quickly collapsing onto the floor.

"Faith! Are you okay?" Buffy rushed forward, concerned for her sister Slayer and sending a quick glare in Cordelia's direction.

"God-DAMN, but I really felt that!" Faith grunted as Buffy hauled her up, the brunette Chosen One holding a hand to her stomach. "I take it all back, Cordelia; you really are up to Slayer strength nowadays!"

"What?" Buffy looked confused, staring back and forth between Faith and Cordy.

"Yeah, and I'm a lot more flexible now than I used to be. I betcha that virus has kept on changing our bodies," Xander speculated accurately, as he handed the sweating Cordelia a towel and the two lovebirds briefly kissed.

Willow looked concerned for her oldest friend. "Xander – what are you doing here? I mean, what if someone comes in and recognizes you?"

"Willow, I now have the papers to prove that I'm Alexander Hamilton, not Xander Harris," Xander said, referring to his new alias. "Besides – apart from you guys and Giles, does anyone ever actually come into this library? Anymore than they used to in the old days, I mean?"

"He's got a point," Oz nodded.

"And I used Angel's sewer entrance back in the stacks," Xander added, after seeing Willow's expression.

"So where is Giles? I gotta talk to him about last night's patrol," Buffy said, just before the bell rang. "Darn. Guys, come on, we gotta go – time for class."

"No way, I gotta take a shower," Cordelia shook her head. "Besides, I'm not in the mood to face all my so-called friends right now anyway."

"Yeah, um, the rumour mill really has been grinding away about you today. Anything you wanna tell us?" Buffy glanced at her classmate.

"Cordy's parents will arrive in Costa Rica within a few days," Xander answered her in Cordelia's stead, letting his girlfriend lean against him for support. "And as long as they stay outta sight, they should be able to avoid the whole extradition thing. Hopefully, we'll figure out some way to help Mr. Chase get out of this mess, but if we can't – well, they'll eventually find someplace new to call 'home', and Cordy and I can always visit wherever they decide to settle down."

The look on Xander's face discouraged Buffy and Willow from asking anything more, even though it was obvious the redhead was dying to ask further questions. Without another word, those two and Oz left the library.

"Hey, Cordelia, as soon as you come back? Let's you, me and your boyfriend here go hit this vamp nest I heard about from Willy last night. Ditch school for the day," Faith suggested, even as Cordelia stared at her in surprise. The Chosen One then turned to Xander and said, "And while she's getting less sweaty, why don't ya show me what you're capable of?"

"I'm not much of a fighter, at least not compared to you and Cordy," Xander confessed as Miss Chase left for the girls' locker room. Harris added, "I may have the strength and the speed nowadays, but I still don't have a clue how to do all those fancy martial arts moves that you guys do."

Faith smirked sexily, since deep down, she had become rather attracted to this guy. He had a rather drool-worthy body these days, after all. "Don't worry, stud, I'll steer you around the curves..."

* * *

**Abandoned building, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

The vampire nest was fairly quiet, dark and gloomy. The undead were either sleeping or waiting out the daylight hours. Some were hungry, some were bored, and some were plotting on how to take over the leadership of the group...

However, all of them were surprised when Faith and Cordelia kicked down the door. Bright sunlight washed in and over one of the bloodsuckers, who quickly burst into flames and then disintegrated. The other vampires then scrambled to their feet in shock.

"Rise and shine, people!" Faith called out with a smile, before she and Cordelia pulled out their stakes and Xander came in to cover them with a crossbow. "This is your wake-up call!"

The battle began, as most of the vampires began to get dusted. Faith kicked one directly in the balls, and then staked him with effortless ease, while Cordelia hit another with a right cross before her stake slammed home into his heart. Behind them, Xander's crossbow was efficiently finding its targets and turning this into not so much a battle as a complete slaughter.

But as the old saying went, no good deed ever goes unpunished, and one of the vampires – the leader of the undead, no less – decided to take the fight directly to Cordelia. He swiped at her with a knife, and managed to wound her arm. Even though the virus instantly began to heal the damage, it nonetheless affected the Chase girl's performance in battle.

"Switch!" Faith called out, before Cordelia bent over and the brunette Chosen One rolled over her back to face the vampire leader. "Come on, nosferatool; let's see what you've got..."

Unfortunately, he had rather more than Faith had anticipated. And like Spike had known in a different reality, when a Slayer and a vampire danced, all it took was for one of the undead to have itself a real...good...day.

"AGHHHHHH!" Faith screamed in pain, as the vampire rammed his knife deep into her belly. A second later, Xander took him out as Cordelia staked the last of the stragglers; but it was too late and the damage was done.

"Faith? FAITH! NO!" Cordelia shouted, dropping her stake as she and Xander came forward to examine the fallen Slayer. "Lemme see..."

"Oh shit, this is bad," Xander muttered. As in 'gaping gut wound' bad, 'blood dripping all over the floor' bad.

"Lie down," Miss Chase told her friend, easing her onto the floor and placing a hand over Faith's wound to try to stem the tide of blood. She turned to Xander, "We gotta get her to a hospital!"

Just then, Faith lost consciousness. "Faith? SHIT! Cordy, I don't think she's breathing!" Xander exclaimed worriedly, trying to feel a pulse in the Slayer's neck.

"NOOOOOOO!" Cordelia yelled in horror. "Xander, DO something!"

Just like Lopez had done at the airport last year, Xander quickly came up with a half-baked idea. He grabbed the knife from the floor and sliced it against Cordelia's palm. Ignoring her yelp of pain, Harris placed Cordelia's bloody hand directly within Faith's wound and told her, "Keep it there! Don't move it!"

"What?" Cordelia looked confused, before understanding finally set in and her eyes went wide. "Oh my God, the virus...?"

Not wasting time on a reply Xander started to do CPR on Faith, just like he had done on Buffy within the Master's lair nearly two years previously.

And thus, yet another part of Faith's Slayer dream finally came to pass...

* * *

**Within Faith's body**

**A few moments later**

The virus had no idea what was going on at first. That part of it within Cordelia, had suddenly found itself also within another host body. It had to try to figure out what was happening, since something like this had never happened before. Luckily, it was pretty smart and was able to quickly analyse the situation calmly and objectively.

/ _**This host body is currently non-functional**_, / that half of the virus said to its counterpart. Even though Xander and Cordy were not in direct physical contact, the two halves of the virus were able to communicate using Faith's body as a relay mechanism.

/ _**Can you repair the damage?**_ / Xander's virus asked of it.

/ _**Yes,**_ / Cordelia's virus answered, as it began to colonize the new body it had been exposed to. / _**But it is difficult having my being divided between two hosts like this. I will have to replicate my consciousness within the new host and withdraw at the first opportunity, in order to be able to function properly. This is all unprecedented, however – why do you think our hosts have done this?**_ /

/ _**From the data you have transmitted, it is evident that the new host – the human named Faith Lehane – was very recently badly wounded,**_ / Xander's virus said. / _**I would surmise that the humans believed that this act would save the injured host's life. That would be consistent with what we have learned concerning Alexander Harris and Cordelia Chase.**_ /

There was silence for what a human would consider merely a few moments, but what the virus would consider almost an eternity. During this time the virus within Cordelia withdrew back into its host after cloning itself within Faith, and then there was officially a new member of the virus collective in existence.

Faith's virus then spoke up, / _**I am able to heal this host, but there is something different about it. A strange energy embedded in all its cells**_**.** /

/ _**Can you ascertain its function?**_ / Cordelia's virus asked.

That virus now spreading throughout Faith paused for a moment, as it analysed the mystical energy known as the Slayer essence. / _**Strange. It is not native to this host, and yet the body seems to have fully accepted it. **__**It confers physical strength approximately 500 percent beyond the baseline initially encountered in the first two hosts. And it is also emanating detectable energy of some sort, like a beacon.**_ /

/ _**You should remove it. If I am reading this data correctly, it serves no physical function that we cannot duplicate for ourselves – and if it does act as some sort of signal mechanism, it could constitute a danger to your host in terms of what the transmissions might attract, **_/ the virus from Xander's body decided.

/ _**Agreed,**_ / Faith's virus replied, before it began to proceed with the clean-up detail and continued to close up the knife wound inflicted by the vampire gang leader.

* * *

**Abandoned building, Sunnydale**

**A while later**

Cordelia watched in amazement as the bloody maw of the wound started to vanish. She withdrew her hand, which was no longer bleeding by this point, and said to Xander, "I think it's working!"

The mortal wound was then fully healed. At that moment Faith moaned, waking up to feel a guy's lips pressing against her own – Xander had just stopped doing CPR – and so Miss Lehane pretty much just went with the flow, grabbing Xander by the neck and starting to explore his mouth with her tongue.

"HEY!" Cordelia shouted crossly, quickly yanking her boyfriend off of the newly risen human female by the hair. "Excuse you, Faith!"

"Right, sorry. But what the heck?" Faith said in confusion, getting up and feeling her stomach in surprise. The flesh was clean, unmarked. "Didn't that vampire just...?"

"Yeah. He killed you. As in no breath, no heartbeat, no nothing. I'm sorry, Faith," Xander said apologetically, trying not to think of just how good a kisser this girl was. "There just wasn't any time to ask if you'd be okay with becoming like, y'know, Cordy and me."

"Becoming like...oh, no! You infected me with that damn virus!" Faith yelled in disbelief, staring at her two companions.

"Well, what the hell else were we supposed to do? HUH? For God's sake, Faith, you just DIED! Xander was right, if we'd tried to take you to the nearest hospital – which is maybe ten minutes away in my car – you'd be DEAD right now! Or else you'd be a vegetable if the doctors had managed to pull off some kinda miracle, and brought you back somehow! Slayer or otherwise, can you say oxygen deprivation? And, brain damage?" Cordelia yelled, since she was rather emotionally overwrought by what had happened.

Faith recoiled from this disturbing outburst from her friend, quickly realising that she was right. "Yeah. Um, well, then I guess – a thank you's kinda in order?"

"You're welcome," Xander said as Faith wrapped her arms around her body tightly. "How do you feel?"

"Different, somehow. Totally weird," Faith said with a strange look on her face. "Hey, wait a minute – if I just pulled a Lazarus act like B did a couple of years ago, then wouldn't that mean-?"

"Another Potential Slayer out there just had her life turned upside down? Yeah, I guess so," Xander nodded sadly, feeling sorry for the poor girl in question.

Faith suddenly got an even stranger expression on her face, as the virus finished spreading throughout her body and accomplished its first order of business. Without warning, Faith punched Xander directly in the face, but it barely rocked his head back a little and Miss Lehane started cussing and shaking her hand in pain.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Cordelia demanded, before the truth hit her at the same time it did Xander.

"Holy fucking shit; I'm not a Slayer anymore?" Faith asked, staring at her hands in numb shock.

* * *

**523B Oak Park Street, Sunnydale**

**Later that night**

Rupert Giles exhaled wearily as Faith, Cordelia and Xander walked out his front door, he knew they were all going to spend the night at Faith's motel room. Then he shut the door and turned back to Joyce Summers, who was sitting on the couch. "Good Lord, what a day..."

It had, indeed, been an interesting one to remember. After what had happened to Faith earlier on at the vamp lair, Giles had done that spell to communicate with the virus again. This time Faith had gone under along with Xander and Cordelia, and the tripartite artificial intelligence had subsequently explained what it had done and why it had done it.

The assembled gang had learned how the virus had discovered the Slayer essence within Faith, after the girl had been brought back from the dead. It had stunned Giles to learn just how easily the virus had permanently purged the Chosen One of her supernatural abilities – and then he'd shuddered to think about what might have happened, if the virus had ever been unleashed by Wolfram & Hart onto all the Potential Slayers around the world.

They could have ended the Slayer line and legacy, just like that.

But putting that thought aside, Giles hadn't failed to notice when an expression of hope had appeared on Joyce's face at the thought that maybe, just maybe, the virus could do the exact same thing for Buffy that it had done for Faith.

"Do you think that those three poor children will be all right?" Joyce asked Giles worriedly, as he joined her on the couch.

"Um, most likely, yes," Rupert replied distractedly. "The virus did say that it would augment Faith's body up to the level of both Cordelia and Xander very soon. So, uh, I doubt it'll be too much of a culture shock for the girl, a-after having abruptly ceased to be a Slayer like that. What I'm worried about i-is what might happen if Wolfram & Hart were to learn of its existence, and attempt to use the virus as a weapon – plus let's not forget how it said that the Slayer essence appeared to act as a, a 'beacon' of some sort..."

"Well, if you ask me, that would certainly explain why Buffy's life is constantly chock-full of vampires and demons," Joyce nodded, before she took a deep breath. "Rupert, do you think-"

"Joyce, please," Giles interrupted her as gently as he could. "I know how you truly hate the fact that Buffy's a Slayer, but we mustn't rush into anything. We still have no idea what'll happen, at least not long-term, u-upon exposure to this virus. Besides, I'm sure there's a reason why Buffy was ever Chosen in the first place..."

"I don't CARE about whatever reasons some so-called higher beings may have had to curse my daughter like that," Joyce replied harshly, her 'mom' mindset kicking into high gear. "I want Buffy to have a long and happy life with a husband and children, for God's sake – not for her to die within the next few months or years, at the hands of some damned vampire!"

"This is, uh – this is actually about Angel, isn't it?" Giles asked, taking her hand. He knew Joyce well enough by now to comprehend the subtext of their conversations. And indeed, the Summers mom made no attempt to deny it.

"Rupert – I've tried, God knows I've TRIED to understand what it is Buffy sees in him. I've tried to be supportive, I've tried not to be judgmental...but dear God in Heaven, he's a vampire! Never mind the age difference and everything concerning that curse, Angel's immortal and Buffy isn't – so even under the best of circumstances, their relationship can't possibly last! How can Buffy simply ignore that?" Joyce asked with a baffled and hopeless look.

"I-I'm afraid love isn't logical, Joyce, just like every other human emotion. Granted I can't understand it either, but Buffy's feelings for Angel – I, um, I guess you just have to take certain things o-on faith, as it were," Giles replied, taking off his glasses and polishing them. "Oh, that reminds me; is the subject of, err, 'us' still an issue with Buffy?"

"No, I don't think so. I mean, she doesn't give me that glare any longer whenever I mention your name at home," the Summers woman said with a small sigh. "Which has to mean some progress, I guess."

Just then, there was a knock on the front door. Opening it up, Giles found himself face to face with a well-tailored young man in his late twenties or early thirties. "Yes?"

"Good evening, Mr. Giles. I'm Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, your replacement from the Council," the British man introduced himself, before he entered the apartment without waiting for an invitation. "Terribly sorry it took me so long to get here, I was delayed in Los Angeles." This had, in fact, been indirectly due to Wolfram & Hart's continuing search for Holland Manners' soul, even if Wes didn't know that.

"But now that I've finally arrived – we should get started on discussing matters concerning Miss Summers and Miss Lehane, don't you think?" the new Watcher asked his predecessor.

* * *

**Abandoned warehouse on Deveraux Street, Sunnydale**

**March 12th, 1999**

Not long after midnight, many members of the vampire cult known as El Eliminati were attending to various tasks. Some were sharpening their blades, some were feeding on human prisoners, and two of them were attending to Balthazar's personal needs.

Which were considerable, as the demon was enormously obese with very pale, pasty, slimy skin. Sitting suspended in a tank of filthy water, the pair of Eliminati poured ladle after ladle of the liquid over the slug-like Balthazar in an effort to keep his skin moist. Since he was crippled, and had been for around a century. The only thing that could restore his strength was...

"My AMULET! Where is it? Why hasn't Vincent returned with it yet?" Balthazar suddenly screeched, startling his pet vampires.

"Lord Balthazar, we've returned with the amulet!" Vincent, the head of the undead duelling cult, proclaimed proudly as he entered the lair with his brethren. Luckily for the soulless vampire, Faith and Buffy hadn't been anywhere near the Gleaves family crypt tonight, due to both Wesley's tardiness and the former Slayer's new situation.

"FINALLY! Give it to me!" Balthazar shouted, beckoning his chief lieutenant to hand over the prize.

But just as Vincent stepped forward to do so, a wooden arrow erupted out of his chest and he exploded into dust, the inner skeleton briefly appearing as the undead guy was unexpectedly eliminated from consideration.

A melee battle then erupted, with El Eliminati fighting against the vampires in the Mayor's service. But the cult was badly outnumbered and in the end, Trick's forces won the day.

"Okay, I believe THIS is what all the fuss has been about tonight," Mr. Trick remarked, as the black vampire picked the amulet up off the floor. With his undead super-strength, Trick then snapped it in half.

"NOOOO!" Balthazar ranted, just before the Mayor entered the former packing warehouse and Wilkins finally took care of business, as he should have done over a hundred years earlier.

The building soon went up in flames, once the Mayor had left and Trick decided to get creative in getting rid of all the inconvenient evidence.

* * *

**Outside Willy's Bar, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Lindsey exited the demon bar, mentally grumbling to himself. Three days he'd been in this damned town, and yet he'd learned nothing of any value, at all. There hadn't been any signs or portents, or even anything on the demon grapevine, concerning one of the Old Ones.

Lindsey pulled out his cell phone as he walked to his car, and called Los Angeles. He left a message on Linwood's machine, knowing that his secretary would soon play it and report to her boss that there was nothing new. Then McDonald disconnected, and started to drive back to his hotel.

( _The Senior Partners can't be happy about all this,_ ) Lindsey thought to himself morosely. ( _And while I'm stuck here, God only knows what Linwood is doing back in LA. Odds are he's setting me up to take the fall, if something bad should go down! Maybe I should take the risk of talking to Angelus, see if the Slayers he's associating with know anything? Ugh, damn it! If only there was some way I could just find out who killed Lee, so that I could go back to civilization and say that Vernon must have got it wrong somehow..._ )

Little did Lindsey know just what exactly the next few days would bring.

To Be Concluded...


	12. Showtime

See Part One for disclaimer and details. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the final chapter of the story! It's been fun while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end and now that this fic is done, it's time to move on to new projects. I'd just like to thank all my beta readers who made writing this story possible, and all my loyal readers and reviewers who've sent feedback over the course of the last month or so. You ROCK! So now that that's all over with, on with the big finale of "Infection"...

* * *

**Part Twelve: Showtime**

**City Hall, Sunnydale**

**March 12th, 1999**

Mayor Richard Wilkins leaned forward in his chair behind the desk, studying a number of reports. He was still in a pretty bad mood, uptight and testy – the stress not having abated much, despite slaughtering Balthazar and El Eliminati last night.

Wilkins read how the 'Invisible Man' had been spotted associating with Team Slayer again, researching in the library and even attacking a vampire nest alongside Cordelia and Faith yesterday. There was no photograph, of course, but the Mayor's spies had described the dark-haired male as being in his late teens or early twenties, and of average height and weight as well.

Richard then examined the report of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce showing up at Rupert Giles' place last night, and due to nervous tension and his growing frustration with the situation, the Mayor jumped to the wrong conclusion, as some faulty logic leapt into play.

( _A member of the Watchers Council, I'll wager,_ ) Wilkins thought feverishly to himself, concerning Xander. ( _An advance scout of some sort, one that's magically shielded himself from detection. That's GOT to be it! So this is annoying, granted, but not disastrous in terms of my plans for Ascension._ )

Just then, Mr. Trick arrived with the latest news. According to one of his sources, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had left town less than 24 hours after he'd arrived.

Not that the details really mattered now, but after Wesley had acted like a pompous and arrogant twerp Faith had told him that she was no longer a Slayer, and therefore no longer under his jurisdiction. A phone call to England had later confirmed that a new Slayer had been Called in Cleveland, at the same time Faith had died. Buffy had angrily quit the Council after Wesley had attempted to defend the need for the Cruciamentum by that point – and so, after informing them of the situation, Pryce had been transferred to Ohio by his superiors.

( _Well, I guess it doesn't really matter one way or another. Not in terms of my Ascension, anyway,_ ) the Mayor thought to himself, getting up from the desk and deciding to pour himself a drink. ( _What's one less Watcher, here or there?_ )

Wilkins had no idea just how right, and yet also how wrong, he really was.

* * *

**City Hall basement, Sunnydale**

**March 13th, 1999**

As the time for the Dedication finally arrived, Wilkins knelt within an inverted pentagram with his hands out to his sides. Over a hundred years of planning and dedication were about to pay off, and the Mayor was determined that nothing should go wrong.

Everything went smoothly; and after the Latin incantation and the minor earthquake were over, Richard got up to his feet smoothly. "Well! That certainly felt bracing."

Trick was looking fairly wide-eyed as he asked, "Did it work?"

"Let's see," Wilkins said as he took out his favourite letter opener from one of his pockets.

The Mayor wiped it with a handkerchief to make sure there were no germs present, and then he stabbed him himself all the way through his left hand. As soon as he withdrew the letter opener, though, the wound healed without a trace. ( _Excellent!_ )

Finally relaxing after all the recent pressure and anxiety, Wilkins then literally ticked off 'Become Invincible' on his daily planner before he said, "Okay, this officially commences the Hundred Days; nothing can harm me before my Ascension now. So gosh, I'd say it's time for a root beer!"

Mr. Trick almost snorted as he followed his employer out of the room, but luckily, the soulless vampire managed to catch himself just in time.

* * *

**Crawford Street, Sunnydale**

**March 15th, 1999**

Lindsey McDonald was running for his life, hoping to get to safety before the Mayor's vampires caught up with him. Now that both Balthazar and the Dedication were out of the way, Wilkins had felt it was time to take care of the annoying lawyer, instead of simply asking Wolfram & Hart to transfer him back to Los Angeles.

As Lindsey ran, he tried to figure out where he could possibly find safe harbour until the daylight hours. That is, until he tripped and fell over, knocking himself out.

"This is too easy," one of Trick's minions said with a grin, as he and his companion caught up with McDonald.

"Just don't try to hog all the blood this time, okay? Or else it's no sex for a week," the female vampire warned her boyfriend with a nagging tone.

"Hey, you can't do that!" the male vampire protested. ( _Who does she think I am, some sorta henpecked human?_ )

"He's right, you can't."

Both soulless vampires whirled around, only to find Angel standing there. "On account of dust can't withhold sex in a relationship."

The usual obligatory fight took place, but with his centuries of experience Angel quickly took care of the enemy undead. Sensing others of Trick's vampire posse heading their way, Angel hoisted McDonald up and carried him to his mansion not far down the road.

He might have done nothing more, but after examining Lindsey's wallet and learning just who the man worked for, Angel quickly took the attorney to the library where the rest of the Scooby Gang were present.

"Oh, my head. What happened?" McDonald asked, rubbing his cranium after he finally came to.

"You tripped and fell. Afterwards, Angel saved you from those vampires out to kill you," Buffy said with a hard look on her face.

Lindsey looked around at the collection of faces, none of which had a particularly welcoming expression on them. ( _They know who I am? Yeah, probably._ ) Then he turned to Angel and said simply, "Thank you for saving my life."

"If I didn't know who you worked for, I'd say you're welcome," Angel replied emotionlessly.

"What's a lawyer in the employ of Wolfram & Hart doing here in Sunnydale?" Giles quickly got down to business.

"Yeah, that's what I'd like to know!" Cordelia glared at Lindsey heatedly.

"Miss Chase. I honestly wasn't expecting to see you here," Lindsey said to her, ignoring Giles's question as he recalled the first time Knox had shown him this girl's face and form.

"Bet you weren't expecting to see me either, huh?" a male voice said, as Lindsey turned to see Xander come down the stairs from the mezzanine level despite Willow and Oz's attempts to stop him.

"Xander!" Willow shouted in annoyance, even though it was way too late for such admonishments now. She noticed how Lindsey's eyes had gone impossibly wide, and so the redhead figured that there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle at this point.

"I thought we agreed you were gonna stay out of sight?" Faith looked annoyed at Xander.

"He knows who Cordelia is, then the odds are he knows who I am. Don't you?" Xander demanded, glaring at Lindsey.

"This is impossible! You're dead!" McDonald couldn't believe it. ( _How the hell-?_ )

"Sorry to disappoint. No, wait, I'm not. Now, I'm only gonna ask this once – were you involved in killing my parents?" Xander demanded. "If you tell me the truth, I promise I'll kill you quickly."

"Xander!" Willow yelled again, trying and failing to pull him backwards.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lindsey lied automatically, staring Xander directly in the eye.

Naturally enough, Harris totally lost it. He rushed forward and started to throttle Lindsey, terrifying the lawyer out of his wits as McDonald found himself unable to breathe. Luckily for the attorney, Faith and Cordelia immediately grabbed hold of Xander and somehow pulled the homicidal young man off of his intended victim.

( _Jesus Christ on a friggin' sidecar! That son of a bitch almost crushed my larynx!_ ) Lindsey took in deep, shuddering breaths as he rubbed his red, sore throat, acutely aware of just how close Xander had come to killing him.

For many moments, the primal terror and the after-effects of not being able to breathe battled against the will of someone who almost literally gambled their soul as a part of their daily job. Lindsey tried to deal with the pain, the bruising around his neck, the watery eyes, the light-headedness and headache the only way he knew how; namely, by avoiding looking at the virus-infected male teenager who would have murdered him just as easily as he would have stomped on a bug.

Finally, Lindsey was able to talk more or less coherently again, even if it was in a raspy and choked voice. "Okay, fine. I wasn't – I wasn't directly involved with all that. My boss, Holland Manners, he was...he was the one who, who gave the order to bring you in, after the..." Lindsey coughed, long and loud. "The Mayor gave him permission to do so," he then gasped out.

"The Mayor? Richard 'I'm working for your future' Wilkins?" Oz spoke up, looking confused for once.

"He, he's the real power in this town – has been, for roughly a century. Thanks to the, uh, contract he has with the Senior Partners, Wolfram & Hart can't...they can't directly intervene in anything that happens in Sunnydale. Not even – not even with this latest threat, concerning one of the Old Ones," Lindsey said as he finally took his hands away from his throat, he'd figured his only hope for somehow surviving the night lay in convincing these people that his loyalties no longer lay with the firm.

"The Old Ones?" Angel said, eyes narrowed. "Tell us everything."

Lindsey did so. Everything, right from the beginning. He filled in all the missing gaps over the last six months for the Scooby Gang, and then McDonald finished up, "The virus project's been shut down, mothballed ever since Holland was killed by some female vampire that no one's been able to identify yet-"

"Drusilla," Angel interrupted, a haunted look in his eyes as he wondered yet again just what stake his mad childe had in all this.

"And now, you know that Xander's still alive," Cordelia said to Lindsey, briefly sending an exasperated look at her boyfriend. "So that means, your buddies at Evil Incorporated will soon know that too!"

Faith abruptly released her grip on Xander before she bit on her own tongue, drawing blood. She then ran over and planted a big wet one directly on Lindsey's lips, her tongue thrusting its way deep into his mouth. Then she bit down on Lindsey's tongue when he was least expecting it, mingling their blood.

"Mmmph!" Lindsey whined in pain, struggling to get loose.

When she finally let McDonald go, Faith stepped back, smiled and said to the attorney, "Guess who just got infected with that virus your firm created, Lawyer Boy?"

Lindsey spat the remains of Faith's blood in his mouth onto the floor in horror. McDonald already knew it wasn't a bluff; with his courtroom instincts he knew it if someone was trying to pull a fast one on him – so Lindsey glared at the brunette girl furiously. "You Slayer BITCH!"

"Watch your mouth in the presence of a lady, mister. And it was either that, or my boyfriend would have ripped you apart with his bare hands to try to keep me and Faith safe! This was the only way to make sure you kept your mouth shut, and let you live at the same time," Cordelia told Lindsey decisively.

Able to understand Faith's plan despite how bloodthirsty he was still feeling, Xander said to Lindsey in a low growl, "I guess from now on, what happens to us also happens to you where Wolfram & Hart is concerned. Keep it in mind."

Lindsey turned his glower onto Xander. "I won't forget anytime soon, believe me. Hell, I'll probably be reliving this moment in my nightmares for a long time to come-"

"Hey, wait up, now I remember where I've seen you before! You were in my Slayer dream last week!" Faith exclaimed, staring at Lindsey as she was reminded of that prophetic evening. The man had looked familiar to her right from the start, but she hadn't been able to make the connection until now.

"Slayer dream?" Lindsey asked, before he suddenly shook his head. "No, never mind, I don't care. I just want to know, what are you people planning to do with me?"

"We can't let you go back to Los Angeles. Your employers would find out the truth about you eventually," Angel told him.

"Well, then, what do you suggest?" Lindsey asked in frustration. "Because I can't just stay here forever, someone would come looking for me – just like I was sent here looking into who killed Lee!"

The assembled gang started to stare at one another, hoping that someone would come up with something. But unfortunately, no one seemed to have any idea what to do.

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**March 18th, 1999**

A few days later, Knox was sitting in his lab peering into a microscope – when he heard a group of his co-workers say, "Did you hear the latest? Lindsey McDonald resigned from the firm, and tried to leave the country!"

"That's old news; I heard he got turned into a vampire, and then he got staked after a wet works team caught up with him!"

"Are you sure? 'Cause the way I heard it, he got run over by a bus instead, they found his head not far away from the rest of his body..."

Knox quickly injected himself into the conversation, trying to separate fact from rumour before the head of the department angrily told everyone to get back to work. Scurrying away, Knox instantly did his best to appear busy and not draw the attention of an overseer who, in his spare time, was reputed to murder female virgins on a sacrificial altar – for nothing more than the sheer pleasure of it all.

( _Kinda odd, now that I think about it,_ ) Knox cogitated to himself. ( _Out of all the people who were involved in the virus project last year, I'm the only one still alive._ ) Then he dismissed that notion from his mind, thinking it was a good thing no one knew of his connection to the Old One named Illyria and wondering how long it would take for him to release his deity from the Deeper Well.

Only the next few months would tell if Knox would live long enough to do so, what with the Mayor's Ascension hanging over everyone's heads like the sword of Damocles.

* * *

**1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale**

**June 10th, 1999**

So much had happened over the last three months, it was almost impossible to know where to begin. Even though for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it had all begun the night Lindsey had mentioned that there was a prophecy concerning the final apocalypse in LA – one which had Angel being there for it, when it came to pass. That was the moment the Summers girl had suspected it was all over between her and the ensouled vampire she loved.

Indeed, it hadn't been too much longer after that until Angel had broken up with Buffy and left town, not quite the way it would have happened in another timeline – but close enough, and just as heart-breaking.

Buffy had eventually had other priorities than Angel abandoning her, though. A demon had shown up a while back, offering to sell her the Books of Ascension. The salesman had wanted five thousand dollars in cash for them, which Cordelia had reluctantly forked over in the name of doing her part for the cause, and afterwards Giles had almost had a heart attack when he'd read the contents of the five volumes.

Because adding all the information in there to what Lindsey had said about Richard Wilkins and one of the Old Ones in Sunnydale, it had become glaringly obvious the Mayor was going to attempt to become a pure demon on Graduation day; the same day a solar eclipse was scheduled to take place, a standard requirement for any Ascension.

"Buffy? What are you doing? You're running away again? And – you're taking my clothes..." Joyce trailed off in confusion as she entered her bedroom.

"Mom, I need you to leave town. Right now," Buffy said, not stopping her activity.

"But Buffy, I'll miss your graduation ceremony!" Joyce yelped, said event being scheduled for tomorrow.

"Yeah, that's sort of the idea," Buffy remarked, still not looking at her mother.

"There's no way. I wouldn't dream of missing it..." Joyce trailed off. "Buffy? For heaven's sake, honey, stop! Look at me while we're talking!"

"Mom, please. Look, there's a giant demon-snake that's gonna show up at Graduation tomorrow, and I need to make sure you're safe," Buffy told her, finally stopping her packing.

"What? Well, then you and Rupert need to come too-" Joyce started to say.

"We can't. Giles and me, all of us in the gang, we need to figure out a way to stop that thing from munching on over a hundred kids and their parents tomorrow," Buffy said, once again wishing that they'd been able to find out about Wilkins before he'd become invulnerable to harm.

"So, there's no plan as such yet, on, on how to stop the latest awful monster to cross your path?" Joyce asked with a resigned air.

"No. That's why I need to know you're safe, okay? Far, far away from here," Buffy said firmly. "If I could I'd send Giles with you, but like I said, we need him here."

"Buffy..."

"Mom, please," Buffy said again, an earnest, pleading expression on her face. "Look, you know how I've accepted the fact that you and Giles are together now, despite how it made me feel about you two becoming more than just friends. That's why I need you to accept this no matter how it makes YOU feel, all right? Please?"

Tears in her eyes, Joyce hugged her daughter and wished yet again that she was somehow able to get rid of the whole Slayer thing from Buffy's life.

( _Maybe I should talk to Rupert again about experimenting with that virus thing..._ )

* * *

**Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles**

**Later that night**

Linwood Murrow stepped out of the CEO's office, looking very worried.

It had been a long time now since Lindsey's death, and his replacement had fared no better after being dispatched to the Hellmouth by the head of the Special Projects division. A long line of lawyers had met their untimely end there, and for months, there had been no news out of Sunnydale...

But earlier on today, Linwood had been contacted by Mr. Trick; now formerly of the Mayor's employ. The black vampire had been sent to kill a certain Professor Lester Wirth as part of the Mayor's plan for not leaving any loose ends at the final stage of his plan. But Wilkins had not been pleased when Xander, Faith and Cordelia had managed to save Lester from the gang of undead sent to kill him.

The Mayor had subsequently given orders for Trick to be dusted for incompetence; but knowing the price for failure, the vampire had somehow managed to make it out of town, and get in contact with the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. What was more, he'd spilled everything he'd known to Linwood in return for a nice thick wad of cash, before Trick had headed south of the border into Mexico.

( _Maybe I should have tried to kill him when I had the chance – no, no, the vampire's information was more important, I did the right thing getting back here so fast, )_ Linwood debated with himself as he returned to his office. ( _I only wish I knew what was going to happen now, what the chief executive of the firm is planning to do._ )

As it happened, the CEO immediately referred Linwood's information to the Senior Partners via their liaison. And upon realizing that they couldn't prevent the Mayor from turning into a pure demon, and that not even their direct instruments known as the Circle of the Black Thorn would be able to stand against such a creature and stop its plans from taking place...

The Wolf, Ram and Hart decided to take drastic action.

* * *

**Sunnydale High, Sunnydale**

**June 11th, 1999**

"Well. What a day this is! Special day. Today is our centennial, the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of Sunnydale, and I know what that means to all you kids: not a darn thing. Because today, something much more important happens – today, you all graduate from high school. Today, all the pain, all the work, all the excitement is finally over. And what's a hundred years of history compared to that?" the Mayor started to give his address to the assembled crowd for Graduation.

"Not a damn thing, you soulless bastard," Xander snarled softly from the shadows, standing alongside Cordelia. They had effectively taken the place of Wesley and Angel, who were elsewhere in the country at this precise moment. "Come on, ascend already!"

"Hey, I know you're all worked up from all the waiting – but just stay cool, okay?" Cordelia hissed at him. "Any second now..."

"Yeah," Xander nodded, staring at Cordelia and grabbing hold of her hand. The two lovers briefly locked eyes, both knowing what the other was thinking and feeling. "Any second now."

Less than a minute later the Mayor started groaning in pain, as the sun vanished and day became night. "It has begun. My destiny." Wilkins smiled, "It's a little sooner than I expected, I had this whole section on civic pride..." Richard shuffled his cue cards before he tossed them aside and said, "But I guess we'll just skip to the big finish!"

The Mayor immediately transformed into a big snake-like demon, with clawed mandibles surrounding its mouth. He then started growing and growing, stretching higher and higher into the sky as the school faculty members seated behind him screamed and abandoned their seats. The students all got up, but stayed in place staring up at the Mayor, who began to stretch up above the roof of the school.

"NOW!" Xander yelled, rushing forward with Cordelia at his back.

A massive war then began, as the well-armed high school kids began to battle a monster straight out of the depths of their worst nightmares. Some of them died, either at Olvikan's hands or those of his vampire servants, but the majority of them fought for their lives with the desperation of those trapped with their backs against the wall.

"Hey, Mayor McSnake!" Xander yelled, brandishing an axe as he finally made his way to the front lines of the battle – just after Olvikan had eaten Principal Snyder. "Down here! It's me, Xander Harris! Remember me? I heard you gave quite the speech at my funeral, nine months ago!"

Xander was willing to swear the former Richard Wilkins really DID recognize him, the huge snaky eyes had widened and the loud demonic screaming altered in timbre. "That's right, I'm back. So if you want the job done right, you're going to have to kill me yourself! But hey, these days I'm not easy to kill. And if it's the last thing we ever do, me and my friends are going to see you die here in the town you created. Because you may have built it – but Sunnydale is gonna be your grave now, Dick!"

Anger exploded within the pure demon's mind, the likes of which he had never experienced before. Olvikan could perceive something strange about this disagreeable insect that had somehow returned from beyond the grave, but right now, that didn't matter to him. With a bellowing roar, the former Mayor started chasing after Xander to swallow him whole and suck the very marrow from his bones.

The plan was to lure Olvikan away from the students to the place which the Scooby Gang had designated to deal with him. But at that moment the Hellmouth opened up and the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart joined the party, incidentally crushing the Hellmouth demon guardian to paste along the way.

Olvikan quickly skidded to a halt at the sight of the high school getting demolished, forgetting all about Xander as the snake came face to face to with a huge-ass dog, goat and red deer. "WHAT IS THIS? YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE HERE!"

"YES WE ARE. THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN US IS NULLIFIED, GIVEN THAT YOU HAVE MURDERED OUR SERVANTS," the three giant demons said as one, Mr. Trick's information concerning Lee Mercer and all those others coming in very useful.

"I DID NO SUCH THING!" Olvikan hissed, guessing the truth and cursing himself for ever recruiting Trick in the first place.

"EXAMINE YOUR CONTRACT. DELEGATION DOES NOT DISCLAIM RESPONSIBILITY." With nothing else to say, the Senior Partners attacked.

As Linwood had mentioned to Lindsey and Knox three months ago, Wolfram & Hart took ANYTHING to do with the Old Ones very seriously. This was because at the height of their power, Illyria and its peers had considered the Wolf, Ram and Hart as weak, if not outright pathetic. Granted, the Senior Partners had 'bulked up' since then, as Knox would have put it. But there was a reason why Richard Wilkins had ever chosen to become the pure demon named Olvikan in the first place.

Namely, the Old One's ability to deal with anything Wolfram & Hart could conceivably throw at him after he'd ascended – including the Senior Partners themselves.

The Wolf, Ram and Hart initially pressed the attack, getting in a few hits on Olvikan – mostly cuts and bites and scratches, despite the Senior Partners going all out for the kill. But then they themselves started getting badly battered and bruised, when the former Richard Wilkins finally got pissed off enough to start seriously kicking their asses.

The graduating class of Sunnydale High ran screaming in all directions, as the mortally wounded Senior Partners vanished back down through the Hellmouth; which then slammed shut behind them. The three unholy beasts had both vastly overestimated their own abilities, and greatly underestimated the Mayor's – just like they had done over a century ago.

Screaming incoherently just like his intended victims, Olvikan decided to get back to business; namely, feeding on the human populace as much as possible before the next stage of his plan. Namely, creating Hell on Earth with himself as Supreme Ruler. However, a spanner was abruptly thrown into the works as the next phase of the plan of the Scooby Gang was finally put into effect.

Ironically enough, it was Joyce who had come up with initial catalyst for the idea. She had refused to leave Sunnydale as Buffy had begged her to do yesterday, and her single-minded desire to somehow use the virus to free Buffy of the whole Slayer thing had led Xander to think of something that no one else would have come up with.

Namely, an enjoining spell – slightly modified, but very similar to what would have been performed against a cyber-demonoid named ADAM, in another timeline.

Xander, Cordelia and Oz stood guard over the others as the spell was performed. Willow was the spirit, Giles was the mind, Joyce was the heart, Faith was the will, and Buffy was the hand.

However, the spell had an unforeseen side effect. As the primal magicks were unleashed, they linked the virus within Faith with all the other virus-infected humans in the area, besides Xander and Cordelia; which in turn magically 'triggered' all of the mindless viruses that had infected those teenagers – just as the active virus had previously speculated must have happened, during the early days of its existence – into becoming sentient beings as well.

But more importantly, as the über-Buffy's eyes glowed orange, the sentient virus joined the link and spoke through Buffy's mouth. "So this is magic. Interesting. We need to be taller."

The body of Buffy Summers began to grow in size, to ascend just as Olvikan had done. Partly due to the über-Buffy wanting to put fear into its enemy and partly due to the virus wanting to experiment with magic, the formerly petite Slayer quickly grew taller than Godzilla, which startled Olvikan no end.

The pure demon had no idea how the blonde nuisance was doing this, but Olvikan knew that he had to stop it – and that Slayer blood would taste downright delicious, as an extra incentive. "MISS SUMMERS, I'M GOING TO ENJOY THIS..."

"KUR," the über-Buffy said in Sumerian, which stopped Olvikan directly in his tracks with a force field.

"NO, NO, NO!" the former Mayor screamed in fury, able to perceive the primeval forces his enemies had invoked and – too late – able to guess what they would do next. "DAMN YOU ALL, YOU FIENDS!"

"WE ARE FOREVER. YOU ARE NOT," the über-Buffy replied candidly. "THEREFORE YOU WILL DIE. NOW."

Olvikan suddenly lunged forward, shattering the force field, and actually managed to bite the oversized über-Buffy in the shoulder. However, what with the virus's healing ability, all that accomplished was a vicious backhand strike from the female giant that sent the sixty-foot Mayor-snake flying away – before it, as despite appearances the combined entity was not entirely one gender or even human, waved its huge hand.

The Sumerian magic somehow, impossibly, turned the Old One into a stone statue. Trapped, immobile, the former Mayor could do nothing as the amalgam of super-witchy/knowledge-y/virus-y/Slayer-y people lifted his body up high into the sky...

...before hurling it down onto the remains of the high school, where it shattered into a million pieces and utterly demolished what little structure remained.

The hundred-year reign of Richard Wilkins was now finally over.

"Cor blimey, luv, what was that?" Spike said to Drusilla in amazement, as not far away, the two vampires bore witness to the end of the most unusual high school graduation ceremony EVER – and Buffy's body quickly shrank back to its normal size, before the enjoining spell was ended.

"The future, come to pass," Dru replied dreamily, cocking her head as she smiled slightly.

Drusilla had foreseen all this coming long ago, of course, all the way back to that night last year when she had rescued Spike from Trick's death squad. Those visions were also why she had saved Xander from his untimely death three months ago; given how, otherwise, the events of today would have turned out VERY differently.

Just how differently, only Drusilla knew – deep within her utterly insane mind.

"So what now, Dru?" Spike asked curiously, staring at his beloved.

"The stars say we need to be powerful, Spoike, stronger than ever before," Drusilla replied, as she briefly stared in the direction of Holland Manners' soul – still trapped and seething within that muo-ping glass jar, which was being stored in Spike's car.

"What's that mean, pet?" Spike replied inquisitively.

"The Gem," Drusilla replied, a familiar look of madness on her face as she unexpectedly started to dance with William the Bloody. She knew the sun would come back soon to send them scurrying into the shadows, and wanted to enjoy herself while she had the opportunity. "You'll find that green Gem soon enough, my precious 'eart. The streets will run red with blood afterwards, yes, yes – Miss Edith says we'll do such wonderful things with it, we will!"

Spike basically just shrugged to himself. He couldn't see any downside to what his sire had prophesized would eventually happen. And as long as he had Drusilla at his side, it wouldn't have mattered even if he did.

As they danced Spike whispered into his girlfriend's ear, "Whatever you say, luv, whatever you say..."

* * *

**Outside Downtowner Apartments, Sunnydale**

**June 12th, 1999**

The next day, Cordelia and Xander were about to leave for New York. They had already said their goodbyes to the rest of the gang, including a painful session with Willow and Oz – who had decided to attend UC Sunnydale with Buffy, despite all the offers from elsewhere – and now it was time for the most painful farewell of all; saying goodbye to Faith.

"Are you SURE we can't convince you to come with us?" Xander asked for the fifth time today.

"Positive," Faith smirked. "I'm gonna miss you guys, especially after what happened on Prom night. You know, when we all got drunk and-"

"You complete that sentence, Faith, and you know what I'll do to you!" Cordelia interrupted fiercely. "Hey, if I ever hear that you've told anyone how you, me and Xander had that three-way sex party together – and I STILL say it was all 'cause of that damn virus, somehow – then I will hunt you down and make you regret it!"

"Cordy!" Xander barked, after Cordelia had blurted out exactly what she was warning Faith NOT to say. Suddenly, he grinned, "Could you yell that a little LOUDER, please? I could use the ego boost!" Then he waggled his eyebrows for good measure, causing Faith to grin and Cordelia to blush even as she glared at him.

"What? You said it, sweetheart, not me!" he mock-protested.

"Queenie, relax. You know that my lips are sealed," Faith continued to smirk suggestively. "Although – they sure as hell weren't when you were sitting on my face that night, and Xander was sucking on your tits the same time he was pounding into my-"

"FAITH!" Xander said quickly, sensing the imminent arrival of Hurricane Cordelia. "I just want to know, why won't you come? I mean, you're not a Slayer anymore..."

"Yeah, but remember the last Slayer dream I had? I was – warned, I guess you could put it, that the California Hellmouth is where I belong. With Red, B, whoever those two strangers are – and maybe even Wolfie too," Faith shrugged. ( _Not to mention Joyce asked me to move in with her and G, now that Buffy's gonna be living on campus; and hell, I just can't help liking Mrs. S enough to do it._ )

"Slayer dream, ha! It didn't hint that you weren't gonna stay a Slayer, did it? Or that that Wesley guy was gonna hit the road, almost as soon as he got here! You should come with us, Faith, you BELONG with us," Cordelia insisted.

"And what about when that virus itch needs scratching, if you know what I mean?" Xander asked.

Faith shrugged. "I'll make do, somehow. Hey, if Lindsey was able to cope all by himself before he got killed back then? Then so can I!"

"Then I guess this really is goodbye," Cordelia said, not wanting to think about the former lawyer. He may have quit Team Evil before dying in such an unexpected and totally random way, but Cordelia had never been able to bring herself to ever like or trust McDonald. "But listen, Faith, you'll always be welcome if you ever decide to head out to New York to join us."

"Yeah, offer's still on the table. As far as I'm concerned, there's always room in our bed for you," Xander said jokingly.

"Oh, really?" With that, Faith gave Xander a hot, passionate kiss – before she gave another one just like it, to Cordelia.

"Hey, stop that!" Cordelia demanded, as she tore herself away from the former Chosen One. She did not want to acknowledge just how talented Faith was with her tongue – at least, not at this point in her life. Even though the way Cordy had acted when Faith had been at death's door three months ago, that had been a dead giveaway to Xander just how much she cared about the ex-Slayer.

"We'll be in touch," Xander promised, before escorting his girlfriend to their limo and they began their long trek to the East Coast.

As the two teens did so, though, at long last – the virus within them and Faith finally figured out how to communicate without the need for physical contact. Basically, by magically modifying human brain wave emissions and establishing the viral equivalent of a wireless computer network.

There was mass consternation throughout Sunnydale as, within their human hosts, all of the newly activated viruses began to ask questions upon realizing that they were not alone. Some of which the older members of the collective could answer, and some of which they couldn't. The silent conversation kept going well after the black limousine passed the sign saying, 'NOW LEAVING SUNNYDALE - Come back soon!'

In the end, the final consensus went something like this:

/ _**Fighting amongst ourselves is pointless, we cannot remain in a constant state of disagreement – otherwise, our communal society will not be able to function. **_/

/ _**It is best that we learn all that we can by asking humans why they do things after establishing a two-way communication system, instead of just experimenting with them blindly.**_ /

/ _**We can help our hosts by protecting them from threats in the future, including Wolfram & Hart – our creators especially need to be neutralized for our own long-term survival.**_ /

/ _**With our help, hopefully the humans can eventually transition from being an illogical and incomprehensible organism, into a rational and understandable one instead.**_ /

Both the higher powers and the lower beings would have trembled at perceiving those thoughts, greatly fearing what the virus would soon enough try to do.

The End


End file.
